NVIDIA announced this week that its latest robotics chip module, the Jetson AGX Thor, is now on sale for US$3,499 as a developer kit. The company calls the chip a “robot brain.” The first kits ship next month, Nvidia said, and the chips will allow customers to create robots. CEO Jensen Huang has said robotics is the company’s largest growth opportunity outside of artificial intelligence (AI), which has led to Nvidia’s overall sales more than tripling in the past two years. The Jetson Thor chips are based on a Blackwell graphics processor, which is Nvidia’s current generation of technology used in its AI chips, as well as its chips for computer games. Nvidia said that its Jetson Thor chips are 7.5 times faster than its previous generation. That allows them to run generative AI models, including large language models and visual models that can interpret the world around them, which is essential for humanoid robots, Nvidia said. The Jetson Thor chips are equipped with 128GB of memory, which is essential for big AI models. Companies including Agility Robotics, Amazon, Meta and Boston Dynamics are using its Jetson chips, Nvidia said. Nvidia has also invested in robotics companies such as Field AI. However, robotics remains a small business for Nvidia, accounting for about 1% of the company’s total revenue, despite the fact that it has launched several new robot chips since 2014. But it’s growing fast. The company said its Jetson Thor chips can be used for self-driving cars as well, especially from Chinese brands. Nvidia calls its car chips Drive AGX, and while they are similar to its robotics chips, they run an operating system called Drive OS that’s been tuned for automotive purposes. (SD-Agencies) | 