Nvidia Jetson


Nvidia Jetson is a series of embedded computing boards from Nvidia. The Jetson TK1, TX1 and TX2 models all carry a Tegra processor from Nvidia that integrates an ARM architecture central processing unit. Jetson is a low-power system and is designed for accelerating machine learning applications.

Hardware

The Jetson family includes the following boards:
  • In late April 2014, Nvidia shipped the Nvidia Jetson TK1 development board containing a Tegra K1 SoC in the T124 variant and running Ubuntu Linux.
  • The Nvidia Jetson TX1 development board bears a Tegra X1 of model T210.
  • The Nvidia Jetson TX2 board bears a Tegra X2 of microarchitecture GP10B. This board and the associated development platform was announced in March 2017 as a compact card design for low power scenarios, e.g. for the use in smaller camera drones such as the Skydio 2. A matrix describing a set of performance modes was provided by the media along with that. Further a TX2i variant, said to be rugged and suitable for industrial use cases, is mentioned.
  • The Nvidia Jetson Xavier was announced as a development kit in end of August 2018. Indications were given that a 20x acceleration for certain application cases compared to predecessor devices should be expected, and that the application power efficiency is 10x improved. Nvidia Jetson Xavier NX has a 6-core Nvidia Carmel ARMv8.2.
  • * The Nvidia Jetson AGX 'Xavier is the 8-core version on the same core architecture.
  • The Nvidia Jetson Nano was announced as a development system in mid-March 2019 The intended market is for hobbyist robotics due to the low price point. The final specs expose the board being sort of a power-optimized, stripped-down version of what a full Tegra X1 system would mean. Only half of the CPU and GPU cores are present and only half of the maximum possible RAM is attached whilst the available or usable interfacing is determined by the baseboard design and is further subject of implementation decisions and specifics in an end user specific design for an application case.
  • *The Nvidia Jetson Nano Developer Kit.
  • In September 2022 Nvidia announced the Jetson Orin Nano'. The modules have the same 260-pin SO-DIMM connector and 69.6 mm x 45 mm dimensions, and come in two variants. The 4 GB variant provides 20 Sparse or 10 Dense TOPs, using a 512-core Ampere GPU with 16 Tensor cores, while the 8 GB variant doubles those numbers to 40/20 TOPs, a 1024-core GPU and 16 Tensor cores. Both have 6 Arm Cortex-A78AE cores. The 4 GB module starts at $199 and the 8 GB variant for $299, when purchasing 1000 units.
  • In December 2024, Nvidia announced the updated Orin Nano with a claimed 1.7x performance improvement and a price reduction of the development kit from $499 to $249
  • In August 2025, the Jetson AGX Thor was released. It features 128 GiB memory and a Blackwell GPU capable of 2,070 FP4 TFLOPS. Nvidia claims the AGX Thor delivers 7.5x more computing power and 3.5x the efficiency compared to the previous generation Orin.

    Performance

There are various versions of the Jetson board available.
YearNamePerformanceGPUDLACPUMemoryPower
2014Jetson TK10.327 Dense FP32 Total TFLOPS192-core Nvidia Kepler architecture GPUQuad-core ARM Cortex-A15 processor2 GiB10 W
2015Jetson TX11.024 Dense FP16 TFLOPS256-core Nvidia Maxwell architecture GPUQuad-core ARM Cortex-A57 MPCore processor4 GiB10 W
2017Jetson TX21.333 Dense FP16 TFLOPS256-core Nvidia Pascal architecture GPUDual-core Nvidia Denver 2 64-bit CPU and quad-core ARM Cortex-A57 MPCore processor8 GiB7.5–15 W
2018Jetson AGX Xavier30-32 Dense INT8 Total TOPS512-core Nvidia Volta architecture GPU with 64 Tensor cores28-core NVIDIA Carmel ARMv8.2 64-bit CPU 8MB L2 + 4MB L332–64 GiB10-40 W
2019Jetson Nano0.472 Dense FP16 TFLOPS128-core Nvidia Maxwell architecture GPUQuad-core ARM Cortex-A57 MPCore processor4 GiB5–10 W
2020Jetson Xavier NX21 Dense INT8 Total TOPS384-core Nvidia Volta architecture GPU with 48 Tensor cores26-core Nvidia Carmel ARMv8.2 64-bit CPU 6MB L2 + 4MB L38 GiB10–20 W
2023Jetson Orin Nano34–67 Sparse INT8 TOPSup to 1024-core Nvidia Ampere architecture GPU with 32 Tensor cores6-core ARM Cortex-A78AE v8.2 64-bit CPU 1.5MB L2 + 4MB L34–8 GiB7–25 W
2023Jetson Orin NX117–157 Sparse INT8 Total TOPS1024-core Nvidia Ampere architecture GPU with 32 Tensor cores1-2up to 8-core ARM Cortex-A78AE v8.2 64-bit CPU 2MB L2 + 4MB L38–16 GiB10–40 W
2023Jetson AGX Orin200-275 Sparse INT8 Total TOPSup to 2048-core Nvidia Ampere architecture GPU with 64 Tensor cores2up to 12-core ARM Cortex-A78AE v8.2 64-bit CPU 3MB L2 + 6MB L332–64 GiB15–60 W
2025Jetson AGX Thor2,070 FP4 TFLOPS2560-core Nvidia Blackwell architecture GPU with 96 Tensor cores14-core ARM Neoverse-V3AE 64-bit CPU 1MB L2 + 16MB L3128 GiB130 W

Maxwell architecture

The published operation modes of the Nvidia Jetson Nano are:
Mode01
GPU clock 921640
Cortex-A57 4x 14282x 918
2x stopped
TDP 105

Pascal architecture

The published performance modes of the Nvidia Jetson TX2 are as follows.
ModeMax Clocks
Max-P
Max-P
Max-P
Max-Q
GPU clock 1302112211221122854
Denver 2 clock 200014002000stoppedstopped
Cortex-A57 2000+1400stopped20001200
TDP might vary1515157.5

Jetson TX2 also has 5 power modes, numbered 0 through 4 as published by NVIDIA. The default mode is mode 3.
PropertyMAX-N
MAX-Q
MAX-P
MAX-P*
MAX-P
Power budgetN/A7.5W15W15W15W
Online A57 CPU44441
Online D15 CPU20201
A57 CPU max freq 2000120014002000345
D15 CPU max freq 2000N/A1400N/A2000
GPU max freq 1300850112211221122
Memory max freq 18661331160016001600

Volta architecture

Ampere architecture

Software

Various operating systems and software might be able to run on the Jetson board series.

Linux

JetPack is a software development kit from Nvidia for their Jetson board series. It includes the Linux for Tegra operating system and other tools. The official Nvidia download page bears an entry for JetPack 3.2 that states:
RedHawk Linux is a high-performance RTOS available for the Jetson platform, along with associated NightStar real-time development tools, CUDA/GPU enhancements, and a framework for hardware-in-the-loop and man-in-the-loop simulations.

QNX

The QNX operating system also available for the Jetson platform, though it is not widely announced. There are success reports of installing and running specific QNX packages on certain Nvidia Jetson board variants. Namely the package qnx-V3Q-23.16.01 that is seemingly in parts based on Nvidia's Vibrante Linux distribution is reported to run on the Jetson TK1 Pro board.