Nvidia unveils new foundation model for humanoid robots

For all generative AI’s advances in language and reasoning, it’s still confined to our screens for now. That could eventually change as the tech industry steps up sci-fi-esque efforts to give this new intelligence a human-shaped shell.

On that front, Nvidia last week rolled out a set of new tools for developers building humanoid robots, including what it says is the first open foundation model for leveling up their generalist capabilities, Isaac GR00T N1. The release comes as some high-profile startups and big AI companies are starting to explore ways to build AI advances into robotics.

“The age of generalist robotics is here,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in the announcement. “With NVIDIA Isaac GR00T N1 and new data-generation and robot-learning frameworks, robotics developers everywhere will open the next frontier in the age of AI.”

The model is pretrained with the ability to perform basic functions, like “grasping, moving objects with one or both arms, and transferring items from one arm to another,” as well as multistep tasks. Nvidia suggests these motor skills might be of use for functions like “material handling, packaging, and inspection.”

Developers can also further train the foundation model to fit their specific purposes with either real or synthetic data—the latter of which they can generate with Nvidia tools. The model relies on a dual architecture that mimics the fast-thinking traits of humans—reflexes and intuition—and slow thinking, or more methodical decision-making.

The time for robots: In Nvidia’s GTC Developers Conference keynote last week, Huang heralded a future of robot workers compensating for what he claimed would be a “severe shortage of human laborers” by the end of the decade.

“The time has come for robots,” Huang said. “Robots have the benefit of being able to interact with the physical world and do things that otherwise digital information cannot…this is going to be a very, very large industry.”

Other tech companies are starting to move into the robotics space as well. OpenAI recently began hiring for its first robotics team and filed a trademark application hinting at humanoid robot ambitions. And OpenAI-backed startup Figure AI claimed it would start “alpha testing” its own humanoid robots in homes later this year. Meta is also reportedly working on humanoid robots, according to Bloomberg.