Recently, we spoke about simulation in robotics, and the challenges associated with it. Within a few days, at Computex 2024, NVIDIA chief Jensen Huang spoke with full fervour about how simulation and robotics are going to change everything.
“The next wave of AI is here. Robotics, powered by physical AI, will revolutionise industries,” said Huang.
The Rising Wave of Physical AI
“Physical AIs are models that can understand instructions and autonomously perform complex tasks in the real world,” said Huang, who is extremely optimistic about the extent to which robots will become a part of every industry.
“Everything is going to be robotic,” he said. Huang believes that there would be an entire ecosystem of robots, where all factories will orchestrate robots and those robots will build robotic products. NVIDIA is banking on Omniverse to make this happen
NVIDIA’s Omniverse, a platform designed for real-time 3D design collaboration and simulation, form the basis for digital twins which is crucial for simulation. Digital twins are the virtual replicas of physical objects or systems where robots can be tested to fit into the real world.
Showcasing a wide range of scenarios where robots have been trained on NVIDIA’s Omniverse, Huang spoke about how companies are building robotic warehouses around it.
In digital twins, factory planners optimise floor layout and line configurations and locate optimal camera placements to monitor future operations. Also referred to as a ‘robot gym’, Foxconn developers train and test NVIDIA ISAC AI applications for robotic perception and manipulation in Omniverse digital twins.
Multimodal LLMs have only accelerated the process of robotic training. “Multimodal LLMs are breakthroughs that enable robots to learn, perceive and understand the world around them, and plan how they’ll act,” said Huang.
Clubbing this technique with human demonstrations, robots can acquire the skills needed to interact with the world using gross and fine motor skills.
Robotics Race Continues
The robotics race is only gaining steam with all the recent advancements. Big tech companies have aggressively invested in robotics companies over the last few years. Figure 01, the humanoid built by deep tech robotics company Figure AI, is backed by some of the biggest players like NVIDIA, Microsoft, Jeff Bezos, and others.
Source : Analytics India Magazine
