As we reported last week, there have been rumors spurred by NVIDIA’s recent hiring practices which suggests that the company could be working on an x86-compatible CPU. However, NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsung Huang was quick to dismiss those rumors in an interview conducted on Thursday.

“No. Nvidia’s strategy is very, very clear. I’m very straightforward about it. Right now, more than ever, we have to focus on visual and parallel computing. Our strategy is to proliferate the GPU (graphics processing unit) into all kinds of platforms for growth,” Huang said. “GPUs in servers for parallel computing, for supercomputing–and cloud computing with our GPU is a fabulous growth opportunity–and streaming video.”

While this statement is very direct, the possibility remains that it could be a bluff. Many tech analysts still feel that an x86-compatible platform could be NVIDIA’s next big move.

“We feel Nvidia could become a supplier of x86 CPUs by necessity, perhaps in the next 12 months (if not sooner) to preserve both GPU and chipset revenue,” said Doug Freedman of Broadpoint AmTech.

NVIDIA, too, has previously expressed its interest in playing in the x86 market at a Morgan Stanley technology conference in March. When asked if NVIDIA would need to or want to get into the general purpose processor market, an NVIDIA rep confirmed the aspiration.

“Well, I think some time down the road, it makes sense to take the same level of integration that we’ve done with Tegra, because Tegra is by definition a complete computer on a chip, and the requirements of that market are such that you have to be very low power, very small, but highly efficient,” they said.

“So in that particular space it made a lot of sense to take that approach. And some day it’s going to make sense to take the same approach in the x86 markets as well… So the question is when. Not so much, I think ‘if.’ I think the question is ‘when.’”

NVIDIA’s last contradiction comes from NVIDIA CTO Bill Dally who last month revealed the existence of the “ExaScale Machine,” a combined CPU/GPU HPC module on track for 2017.