Global Telcos Join NVIDIA GeForce NOW Alliance to Deploy Cloud Gaming to New Territories

by Phil Eisler

Advances in broadband and 5G mobile networks offer opportunities to deliver high-quality, low-latency PC gaming to nearly any device from the cloud, eliminating the need for client downloads, frequent updates and lower quality mobile versions. Newly optimized RTX servers for cloud gaming deliver cinematic-quality graphics enhanced by ray tracing and AI.

At our GPU Technology Conference this week, we announced the GeForce NOW Alliance, a partnership of telecommunications providers using optimized NVIDIA RTX Servers to expand and improve the cloud gaming experience globally. Established as 5G networks take shape and become commercially available, operators now have a turnkey solution to bring cloud gaming onto their networks.

The initial partners – including Softbank Corp., of Japan, and LG U+, of Korea – will begin deploying the optimized RTX Servers with NVIDIA-managed GeForce NOW software, expanding GeForce NOW into new markets that complement the current beta availability in North America and Europe.

“NVIDIA and SoftBank Corp. have worked together for a couple of years to pair our 5G network and the GeForce NOW platform in our 5GxIoT Studio,” said Junichi Miyakawa, representative director and CTO at SoftBank Corp. “We will deliver GeForce NOW across our low-latency, high-speed and high-capacity mobile network. SoftBank Corp. is excited to lead 5G with the innovative service, GeForce NOW.”

“We see cloud gaming as a new opportunity for LG U+ 5G and fiber networks, and with GeForce NOW we will once again revolutionize the market,” said Lee Sang-min, senior vice president of LG U+.

GeForce NOW is NVIDIA’s gaming service that connects gamers to a GeForce PC experience in the cloud. Currently in public beta on PC, Mac and SHIELD TV, the service connects to popular digital game stores allowing gamers to bring their own library of PC titles. Processing and rendering is offloaded from the local device to server-class GPUs and all downloads, patches and updates take place in the cloud.

This opens up a world of possibilities as underpowered or incompatible hardware transforms into a high-performance gaming rig.