Nvidia debuts AI humanoid software to advance robotics safety

Driving the news: Nvidia on Monday introduced Nvidia Halos for Robotics, a system that incorporates software, processing power, sensors and inspection capability rooted in the company's autonomous vehicle learnings.

• The company said its first customer for the new system is Agility, which plans to deploy Halos in humanoids working in operations for customers like Amazon and Toyota.
• It delivers a "unified safety architecture to scale autonomous systems" into physical environments, Deepu Talla, Nvidia's VP of robotics and edge AI, said in a statement.

The big picture: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has repeatedly shared bullish sentiment on humanoids.

• He recently said Hyundai is leading the industry in humanoid development: "No one is in a better position," he told reporters in South Korea.
• And he has periodically praised Tesla's Optimus, which CEO Elon Musk has predicted could be the biggest product in world history.

💭 Our thought bubble: The fact that Nvidia continues to focus on developing software and chips for humanoids — not the actual hardware — tells you where it sees value.

The bottom line: The holy grail of this technology is humanoids that can work side by side with humans, continuously interacting and handling complex, dangerous and back-breaking tasks.

• But that will require rock-solid safety parameters.
• "Safety design has to be much more advanced because you need to actually reason about, based on what you're seeing in the environment, what things you can and can't touch, move, or exert force on," Pras Velagapudi, chief technology officer of Agility Robotics, told Bloomberg.