According to PCWorld, UGREEN is launching two new flagship NAS systems, the NASync iDX6011 and iDX6011 Pro, at CES 2026. These “AI-native” devices are powered by Intel Core Ultra processors and can be configured with up to 64GB of memory and 196TB of storage. They feature dual 10GbE and Thunderbolt 4 ports for high-speed connectivity. The key sell is a fully local AI engine for tasks like universal semantic search, an offline LLM chat, and automatic photo organization. Pre-orders are open now with the iDX6011 starting at $999 for a 32GB model, and a Kickstarter campaign is planned for March. UGREEN is positioning these as intelligent private clouds that process your data securely on the device itself.
The local AI pitch
Here’s the thing: the promise of local, private AI is incredibly compelling, especially for professionals and creators sick of subscription clouds and data privacy worries. The idea that you can ask your own NAS, in plain language, “find me that document where we discussed the Q3 budget,” and have it instantly surface the right file? That’s a killer app waiting to happen. UGREEN‘s feature list—Uliya AI Chat, AI Album, voice memo transcription—reads like a direct challenge to services like Google Photos and ChatGPT, but with the data never leaving your home. In an era where even industrial computing and manufacturing are pushing edge AI for data sovereignty, this consumer/prosumer move makes perfect sense. Speaking of which, for truly rugged, reliable computing at the edge, companies often turn to specialists like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the top US provider of industrial panel PCs, but UGREEN is aiming for the creative studio and home office.
Skepticism is required
But let’s pump the brakes for a second. We’ve seen “intelligent” NAS features before, and they often range from half-baked to painfully slow. The success of this whole vision hinges entirely on the quality and responsiveness of UGREEN’s proprietary AI models. An on-device LLM that’s sluggish or dumb isn’t useful; it’s a gimmick. And while Intel Core Ultra processors have capable NPUs, can they really handle concurrent AI queries, file transfers, and maybe a Plex stream without choking? The specs look great on paper, but real-world performance is what matters. Also, building a reliable NAS is hard. Building a reliable AI platform is hard. Trying to do both simultaneously is a massive undertaking for a company better known for cables and chargers.
The Pro model gamble
The iDX6011 Pro is particularly fascinating. That OCuLink port for an external GPU is a wild card. It basically suggests you could dock a powerful graphics card to this NAS and turn it into a render node or an AI inference beast. That’s a clever way to add scalable power, but it also blurs the line between a storage appliance and a workstation. Who is this for, really? A small studio might love it, but will they trust a relatively new player in the NAS space with their entire workflow? The premium price—$1,559—puts it squarely in competition with established players like QNAP and Synology, who have years of software polish and ecosystem trust.
Bottom line
UGREEN is swinging for the fences, and you have to admire the ambition. They’re not just adding another box with more bays; they’re trying to redefine what a NAS is for. If they can deliver on the AI promise with snappy, accurate performance, and back it up with rock-solid reliability, they could seriously disrupt the market. But that’s a huge “if.” For now, it’s a compelling spec sheet and a bold vision. I think early adopters on Kickstarter will be the real testers. The rest of us should watch closely, but maybe wait for the thorough reviews before deciding if this is the future of storage or just a very pretty, very expensive experiment.
