Nvidia, a top technology hardware producer, recently unveiled its new artificial intelligence (AI) powered robot project as the technology company continues to shift its focus to artificial intelligence projects.
Last week, Nvidia announced a “general-purpose foundation model for humanoid robots” called Project GR00T. According to the company’s website, the project is intended to increase Nvidia’s “breakthroughs in robotics and embodied AI.”
As part of the announcement, Nvidia unveiled the new Jetson Thor computer used in “humanoid robots” and “significant upgrades” to the company’s robotics platform.
“Building foundation models for general humanoid robots is one of the most exciting problems to solve in AI today,” Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s founder and CEO, said. “The enabling technologies are coming together for leading roboticists around the world to take giant leaps towards artificial general robotics.”
According to Fox News, Project GR00T involves the development of “foundation models,” which incorporates self-supervised learning. The company’s website explains that AI-powered robots will be able to “understand natural language and emulate movements by observing human action.”
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Gerard Andrews, Nvidia’s marketing lead for robotics, told Fox News, “With advances in generative AI, there has been a steady stream of developments across the ecosystem where foundation models for robotic tasks have shown the ability to improve the productivity and performance of robotics developers.”
Announcing the new AI-powered robot project at the company’s GTC conference, Huang appeared on stage alongside multiple robots, including Star Wars-themed robots. A video from the recent conference shows robots learning to emulate human behavior to accomplish various tasks and robots responding to human commands.
Nvidia explained that the new Jetson Thor computer system installed in the robots is designed to help the robots complete tasks while interacting “safely and naturally with people and machines.” The company noted that the Jetson Thor computer system includes a “system-on-a-chip,” which is designed to handle the numerous processing demands required to run various AI models.
Regarding the company’s new AI advancements, Nvidia spokesman David Pinto said, “We are already seeing robots becoming more intelligent and capable of performing multiple useful tasks in a given environment with Isaac Perceptor bringing in advanced AI capabilities for mobile robots and Isaac Manipulator for industrial manipulation arms.”
According to the company’s website, Nvidia is currently developing AI platforms for humanoid robot companies such as Figure AI, 1X Technologies, Agility Robotics, Boston Dynamics, Fourier Intelligence, Sanctuary AI, Unitree Robotics, Apptronik, and XPENG Robotics.
