Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is aware of a factor or two about recognizing the subsequent massive wave. Again within the 2010s, when his firm was nonetheless best-known for gaming {hardware}, he started steering it towards breakthroughs in A.I.—a big gamble that reworked Nvidia into the world’s most respected public firm. Now, Huang has his sights set squarely on robotics.
Yesterday (Aug. 25) Nvidia unveiled Jetson Thor, a $3,499 developer package it describes because the “brains” of robotic techniques. The robotics computer systems are designed to speed up purposes throughout industries starting from manufacturing and logistics to well being care and retail.
Powered by Nvidia’s Blackwell GPU, Jetson Thor boasts 128GB of reminiscence and delivers 7.5 occasions the A.I. compute of its predecessor, Jetson Orin, with 3.5 occasions better power effectivity. Early adopters embrace Meta, Amazon Robotics, Boston Dynamics and Caterpillar, whereas firms like OpenAI and John Deere are testing how Jetson Thor may improve their robotics efforts.
Huang has lately turn into extra outspoken about his perception that bodily types of A.I., reminiscent of humanoid robots and self-driving automobiles, will drive the know-how’s subsequent part. With instruments like Cosmos Cause, a vision-language-action (VLA) mannequin designed to provide robots human-like reasoning expertise, he’s positioning Nvidia as a key drive in that transition.
For now, robotics represents solely a sliver of Nvidia’s enterprise. Between February and April, the corporate’s automotive and robotics division generated $567 million in income—about 1 % of complete gross sales—however nonetheless marked a 72 % year-over-year leap. Firm-wide income for the quarter reached $39.3 billion, pushed largely by its booming information heart enterprise.
Nvidia hopes Jetson Thor will help robotics develop into one thing far larger. At Amazon Robotics, the package is getting used to scale next-gen robots able to shifting safely in real-world environments. At Caterpillar, Jetson Thor is powering autonomous machines that may make real-time selections and enhance precision in building and mining.
Boston Dynamics is integrating Jetson Thor into its humanoid robotic Atlas, whereas Agility Robotics is utilizing the package within the fifth technology of its Digit robotic and plans to do the identical for its sixth, aiming to spice up notion and decision-making capabilities.
Lecturers are additionally exploring the package’s potential. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute report that Jetson Thor allows robots to deal with duties reminiscent of medical triage and search-and-rescue in advanced environments.
The product, Huang mentioned in an announcement, was designed for the “tens of millions of builders” working to carry bodily A.I. into the true world. “With unmatched efficiency and power effectivity and the flexibility to run a number of generative A.I. fashions on the edge, Jetson Thor is the last word supercomputer to drive the age of bodily A.I. and common robotics,” he mentioned.
