Razer's AI ecosystem: AIKit, Forge and Tenstorrent, and what they have to do with Razer AVA
At CES 2026 Razer didn't only show Project AVA (Razer AVA). It also showed tools for AI developers: Razer AIKit, the Forge AI Dev Workstation and a compact accelerator built with Tenstorrent. They are separate products: Razer hasn't presented them as part of AVA or said they can be used to create your own avatars.
Correction — Oct 23, 2026
The first version of this article said AVA runs Llama 3 8B quantized as GGUF plus Whisper locally, "without relying on external servers", and that AIKit would let you create avatars for AVA. None of that comes from Razer, so we removed it, along with two AI-generated images. What follows is based on Razer's announcements and the AIKit repository.
Razer AIKit: what it is
AIKit is a free, open-source kit (Apache 2.0, on GitHub) for running and fine-tuning language models on your own hardware. Razer pitches it at researchers and developers, tuned for its laptops, external GPUs and workstations.
- What's insideAccording to its documentation, it combines vLLM for inference, LlamaFactory for fine-tuning and Ray to spread work across several GPUs, plus a command-line tool to manage models.
- What it needsAn NVIDIA GPU (Volta architecture or newer). It runs on Ubuntu and, on Windows 11, through WSL 2.
- Which modelsIt doesn't ship with a fixed one: it downloads and runs open models. The example in its documentation is a DeepSeek model, not Llama 3.
- OpenAI-compatible APIvLLM can serve models through the same API as OpenAI, and the repository includes an integration example. That makes it easier to reuse tools built for that API with a local model, but it doesn't connect them to AVA.
In April 2026 Razer extended AIKit to image, video and audio models and to ARM64 machines. We covered it in AIKit's omni-modal update.
What does AIKit have to do with Razer AVA?
Less than it seemed. Neither the AIKit announcement nor the official AVA page mentions the other product. The only confirmed joint use is the AVA Mini campaign: Razer used AIKit to generate the pet images users uploaded, on rented GPUs.
What Razer has said about AVA itself is different. At CES it ran on Grok, xAI's model, and Razer's CEO told The Verge that AVA will be an open, "multi-model" platform. The official page says it connects to a Windows PC over USB-C, has a camera and microphones, and announces a PC Vision Mode so it understands what's on your screen. Razer hasn't said which model it will use at launch or which parts are processed on your PC and which in the cloud.
There's also no SDK for building apps or avatars for AVA. What does exist is a sign-up form for game studios that want to bring their characters to AVA.
The developer hardware
Razer Forge AI Dev Workstation
A workstation for local AI training, inference and simulation with no subscriptions, which Razer says scales from tower to rack for enterprise use.
Compact accelerator with Tenstorrent
An external box that adds generative AI capability to any Thunderbolt 5 machine. Up to four units can be daisy-chained.
Neither is an AVA requirement. Razer only asks for a Windows PC and a USB-C connection. See Razer AVA's requirements.
What Razer hasn't confirmed
- That AVA uses Llama 3, GGUF models or Whisper.
- That AVA works offline or without external servers.
- That you can create your own avatars, "brains" or skins for AVA with AIKit.
- That AVA can control Razer Chroma or smart-home devices.
What's confirmed about its look is in our Razer AVA avatar guide: the official page shows three avatars (AVA, Sumi and Niko).
Our Take
AIKit, Forge and the Tenstorrent accelerator are a product line for AI developers, separate from AVA. Razer showing them at the same CES doesn't mean AVA runs on them, and this article originally assumed it did without evidence. What does connect the two is experience: AVA Mini showed Razer can deploy AIKit for a mass audience. If AVA ever opens up to local models or third-party content, AIKit would be the logical route, but that's our hypothesis, not an announcement.
The business question is still open: if AIKit is free, the margin is in the hardware (laptops, external GPUs, Forge) and in keeping developers inside Razer's ecosystem. It's the same model the brand uses with its peripherals and software.
Sources
AIKit and building for AVA
At avasdk.com we track Razer AIKit and what actually exists today for developers in the AVA ecosystem.