Russian S-71M missile found using NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX computer
Ukraine’s military intelligence says it has identified an NVIDIA Jetson Orin board inside Russia’s new S-71 “Monochrome” air-launched cruise missile. The module was recovered during analysis of Russian weapons used against Ukraine. The recovered NVIDIA processor carries the marking TE980M-A1, which corresponds to the Tegra T234 platform used by the Jetson Orin NX 16GB .
Jetson Orin NX is a compact system-on-module intended for robotics and other autonomous systems. The 16GB model combines an eight-core Arm Cortex-A78AE CPU with an Ampere GPU featuring 1,024 CUDA cores and 32 Tensor Cores . NVIDIA currently rates the module for up to 157 TOPS after later JetPack power-mode updates.
GUR says the presence of the NVIDIA computer may indicate that the missile uses AI-based processing.
© War&Sanctions Nintendo Switch 2 uses a similar chip
The hardware also has an interesting connection to Nintendo Switch 2. Nintendo officially confirms that Switch 2 uses a custom NVIDIA processor, while technical documentation and previous hardware analysis identify the console platform as Tegra T239 . The Jetson module uses Tegra T234 instead, so the two are not the same SoC , but both come from NVIDIA’s Ampere-era Tegra development.
The S-71M “Monochrome” is part of Russia’s S-71 weapon family associated with the Sukhoi Su-57 fighter. Unlike the S-71K “Kover”, which is designed primarily for targets with known coordinates, the Monochrome variant reportedly adds autonomous target search and identification capabilities. Ukrainian sources describe it as a hybrid between a cruise missile and an air-launched loitering weapon.
Source: S-71M Monochrome Cruise Missle
I think this is also a reminder that AI does not always mean something good. The tiny compact computing platforms can also end up inside weapons. NVIDIA may want to look more closely at how this specific Jetson platform reached Russia, since it is difficult to imagine the company knowingly supplying it for this purpose.
Update : NVIDIA responded to Tom’s Hardware inquiry about this specific case:
“Our Jetson Orin modules are consumer-grade products sold to students, developers, and startups for a wide range of beneficial applications. They are not available in Russia and are not designed for military purposes. Pre-owned Jetsons are available through many reseller channels. Although we cannot track products after they are sold, if we determine that any customer is violating U.S. export controls, we will take appropriate action.”
Source: War & Sanctions
