According to this story from X-bit Labs, AMD has confirmed, during its presence at the CEATEC show in Japan, that it expects to release DirectX 11 compatible GPUs, in 2009.

The Sunnyvale, CA based company also predicts the increased fortunes of GPGPU in the same time frame, whilst highlighting its planned transition to a 40nm fabrication process and, what is described as, widespread usage of GDDR5 memory technology.

It is believed that DirectX 11 and, the successor to Microsoft's Vista OS, will also play a role in increasing the significance of the humble GPU.

There's never a dull moment in GPU land, after all.