After AI, NVIDIA tackles humanoid robots

© AI-generated image via Copilot with DALL-E

A big winner in the rush to generative artificial intelligence (AI), NVIDIA is now looking to get into the booming humanoid sector. The company is preparing to release Jetson Thor, a “ platform for robots “.

A humanoid operating system

Thor joins NVIDIA's Jetson series of advanced embedded platforms designed for AI and machine learning applications. The company unveiled it with great fanfare at its conference in March, when a slew of humanoids joined CEO Jensen Huang on stage.

NVIDIA assures that its technology will be commercialized in the first half of 2025, in order to equip robots from other companies. Jetson Thor can thus be compared to an operating system specifically designed to power humanoids.

The platform stands out for its ability to run multimodal AI models, that is, capable of processing and understanding information from texts, images, audio and even sensory data such as touch and movements. Also, Jetson Thor should allow robots to understand natural language and interact more intuitively with their environment, while optimizing their energy consumption thanks to a sophisticated modular architecture.

And the company is thinking big. It is targeting a fragmented market of “hundreds of thousands” manufacturers, Deepu Talla, NVIDIA's vice president of robotics and edge computing, said at a news conference in Tokyo.

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A Sector Evolving Thanks to Generative AI

NVIDIA's efforts are a testament to the evolution of the humanoid sector, which has received a real boost thanks to the boom in generative artificial intelligence (AI). Integrating learning models into robots gives them the ability to acquire knowledge and adapt easily to a wide range of tasks. This is a significant step forward in the sector.

A trend that is confirmed by the ever-increasing investments of generative AI players in young companies specializing in robotics. In March, OpenAI injected funds into Figure AI, a startup whose humanoid is already impressive. It integrates a model of the company to facilitate communication with humans.

One of the most advanced humanoid robots to date, Tesla's Optimus, could also be equipped with generative AI in the future, notably the Grok model from xAI, a startup founded by Elon Musk in 2023.

However, we will have to be patient before seeing significant progress in this complex area. Deepu Talla believes that it is unlikely that quality humanoid robots will be deployed on a large scale in 2025.

• NVIDIA will commercialize its Jetson Thor platform in the first half of 2025.
• The technology is intended to equip humanoid robots from other manufacturers.
• The robotics sector is taking a major step forward thanks to the rise of generative AI.

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