Sipeed Says 256 TOPS MaixStation Edges Nvidia DGX Spark on Qwen

MaixStation uses Axera's AX8860P processor, which combines 16 Arm Cortex-A55 cores with AI acceleration rated at 256 TOPS. Sipeed lists typical power consumption at 40W.

By contrast, Nvidia advertises the DGX Spark at 1,000 TOPS using sparse FP4 calculations. Sipeed argues that practical workloads cannot fully exploit that theoretical figure and that its architecture uses available processing resources more efficiently during prefill. Nvidia's dense FP4 performance approaches 500 TOPS theoretically, according to the report.

Both systems list 273GB/s of memory bandwidth. Sipeed says architectural optimizations allow its processor to sustain higher utilization during demanding inference operations. The comparisons were run with speculative decoding through multi-token prediction disabled, allowing the company to evaluate both systems under similar conditions. The reported advantage is relatively small, and independent testing would be needed to establish performance differences across other models and workloads.

Sipeed also compares the MaixStation with Apple's Mac Mini, though the available benchmark figures primarily concern Nvidia's system rather than Apple's hardware.

The AX8860P is made on a 6nm process and supports 256-bit LPDDR5X memory, PCIe 5.0 connectivity, and Axera's proprietary AXLink interconnect. Its specifications include 64 video decoding channels, 16 encoding channels, and support for configurations with as much as 128GB of memory. The computer measures 110 × 110 × 30 mm and includes USB 3.0 Type-C connectivity and a 10GbE SFP+ network interface. It normally draws about 40W and receives power through a 65W USB Power Delivery connection over its Type-C port.

Sipeed expects the entry-level 32GB MaixStation to cost below $2,000 and the 128GB configuration to remain under $4,000. Nvidia's DGX Spark reportedly sells for $6,949.99, above the $3,000 to $4,000 pricing announced in March 2025.

Sipeed says the 32GB model supports Qwen3.8-27B, while the 128GB configuration can accommodate Qwen3.8-Flash-Next 125B. Combining two units provides 256GB of memory for DeepSeek V4-Flash 284B, and a four-unit MaixStation Pro configuration offers 512GB for DeepSeek V4.1-Flash 552B. AXLink supports communication between processors, with Axera claiming about 80% interconnect efficiency when multiple chips operate within connected computing systems.

Software compatibility reportedly includes PyTorch, ONNX, vLLM, SGLang, and Hugging Face formats, along with interfaces compatible with OpenAI applications and Axera's development tools. Sipeed plans a Kickstarter campaign within several months and is offering a $100 discount through a $30 reservation.

Commercial availability, final pricing, and independently verified performance remain unresolved, particularly for configurations running extremely large language models.