Nvidia will launch Jetson Thor, a new computing platform for humanoid robots, in the first half of 2025. The company hopes to carve out a niche in the fast-growing robotics sector, not by producing robots directly, but by producing the “brains” for them and selling them to robotics manufacturers around the world.
Image source: NVIDIA
Jetson Thor is the latest and most powerful system in Nvidia’s Jetson line of compact computers designed for artificial intelligence applications. The new model is focused specifically on robotics. Jetson Thor will give robots greater autonomy and improve their ability to interact with people and the environment.
Jetson Thor was created as a new computing platform capable of performing complex tasks and interacting securely and naturally with people and machines. It has a modular architecture optimized for performance, power and size. The chip includes a next-generation GPU based on Blackwell architecture with an AI engine delivering 800 teraflops of performance in FP8. There is also a built-in security module, a high-performance cluster of CPU cores and a 100-Gbit Ethernet interface.
At Nvidia’s annual conference in March 2024, CEO Jensen Huang showed off several robots using Nvidia chips. It’s important to note that rather than making its own robots, Nvidia is positioning itself as a technology provider, much like Google provides the Android platform to smartphone makers. This operating model allows Nvidia to focus on developing the core infrastructure, while customers will handle the production and configuration of final solutions.
«We provide a platform for robots, we do not build robots,” said Nvidia Vice President of Robotics and Edge Computing Deepu Talla. Unlike the smartphone market, which is dominated by a few large players, the robotics sector is highly fragmented and has “hundreds of thousands” of potential customers. Nvidia is already collaborating with major manufacturers such as Siemens and Universal Robots, who are actively implementing Jetson-based solutions in their projects.
Talla also noted that Nvidia is supplying technology to Tesla to create humanoid robots. Let us remind you that Tesla is currently actively developing the Optimus robot. According to Elon Musk, the Optimus robot will go into limited production by the end of 2025 for use in Tesla factories, and robots are planned to be produced for third-party customers in 2026.
The market for humanoid robots shows great promise, although large-scale deployment of such machines will not happen very soon. Humanoid robots have the potential to transform human-machine interactions in sectors ranging from manufacturing and construction to healthcare and home care. These robots can perform a variety of tasks, helping to ease physical work and solve the labor shortages that many countries are facing. For example, in China, significant attention is paid to the development of this technology – from mechatronics to artificial intelligence, due to the increasing labor shortage and the need for automation.