The advent of humanoid robots may be significantly closer with the latest release from NVIDIA. The company announced the launch of Project GR00T at NVIDIA GTC 2024 earlier this week, saying the new “foundation model” will advance the development of humanoid robots in industrial use cases.
Project GR00T, not to be confused with the movie character Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy, stands for "Generalist Robot 00 Technology" and is being designed to learn, understand, and emulate human speech and movement patterns through observation in human interactions.
According to NVIDIA, Project GR00T “will enable a robot to learn from a handful of human demonstrations so it can help with everyday tasks and emulate human movement just by observing us.” This will allow humanoid robots to perform with increased coordination, dexterity, and various other skills necessary to maneuver, adjust, and engage with the physical environment.
The significance of the development of this technology was highlighted by showcasing Jetson Thor a new computing system specifically designed for humanoid robots.
Jensen Huang, the company's founder and CEO, demoed Project GR00T's capabilities during the conference to highlight the platform's potential. Huang foresees, “Building foundation models for general humanoid robots is one of the most exciting problems to solve in AI today.” He further elaborated, “The enabling technologies are coming together for leading roboticists around the world to take giant leaps towards artificial general robotics.”
NVIDIA is constructing an all-encompassing AI platform tailored for prominent humanoid robot companies, including 1X Technologies, Agility Robotics, Apptronik, Boston Dynamics, Figure AI, Fourier Intelligence, Sanctuary AI, Unitree Robotics, XPENG Robotics, and others.
According to Jonathan Hurst, cofounder and chief robot officer at Agility Robotics, “We are at an inflection point in history, with human-centric robots like Digit poised to change labor forever. Modern AI will accelerate development, paving the way for robots like Digit to help people in all aspects of daily life.”
