AI chip leader Nvidia on Tuesday (March 19) announced Project GR00T or Generalist Robot 00 Technology, which promises to revolutionise the evolution of humanoid robots. The project aims to empower humanoid robots with human-like understanding and movement using Artificial Intelligence (AI). Nvidia's announcement comes a few days after another AI robotics company, Figure AI, showcased its humanoid robot, Figure 01. Powered by ChatGPT. Figure 01 can follow instructions and assist with tasks like cleaning up and handing over objects. What is Project GR00T? Project GR00T is essentially a general-purpose foundation model for humanoid robots. It is at the vanguard of Nvidia's efforts to drive breakthroughs in robotics and embodied AI (robots, virtual assistants, or other intelligent systems that can interact with and learn from a physical environment). Project GR00T stands for Generalist Robot 00 Technology. Robots built on this platform are designed to understand natural language and emulate movements by observing human actions, such as instantly learning coordination, dexterity, and other skills. This can help the robots navigate and engage with the real world around them. During his keynote address at the recently held GPU Technology Conference (GTC), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang demonstrated videos of such robots accomplishing a variety of tasks. “Building foundation models for general humanoid robots is one of the most exciting problems to solve in AI today,” Huang said. How was it trained? The model has been trained on NVIDIA GPU-accelerated simulation, and enables the humanoids to learn from human demonstrations with imitation learning, and from the robotics platform NVIDIA Isaac Lab for reinforcement learning. While imitation learning involves observing an expert performing a task and learning to imitate those actions, reinforcement learning is a machine learning method that trains software to make decisions to achieve the most optimal results. In simple words, Project GR00T is a multimodal AI system that acts as the mind for humanoid robots, allowing them to learn new skills and interact with the real world. Leading names in robotics, such as Figure, Boston Dynamics, Apptronik, Agility Robotics, Sanctuary AI, and Unitree, are reported to have partnered with Nvidia to leverage GR00T. What is more for robotics from Nvidia? In addition to Project GR00T, the company has also updated Isaac with Isaac Manipulator and Isaac Perceptor, which adds multi-camera 3D vision. As the names suggest, Manipulator helps robots manipulate objects in their environment and Perceptor helps with their “perception.” Nvidia also unveiled a new computer, Jetson Thor, to aid humanoid robots based on NVIDIA’s Thor system-on-chip (SoC). Thor is powering the intelligence of these robots, and the chip has been designed to handle complex tasks along with ensuring a safe and natural interaction between humans and robots. What does all of this mean? On the face of it, job loss seems imminent, with humanoid robots potentially capable of handling various hazardous as well as repetitive tasks. For instance, Nvidia’s collaboration with healthcare company Hippocratic AI to develop AI-powered healthcare agents can put some nurses' jobs at risk. However, many point out that the humanoid robots can aid humans and make their lives more comfortable, instead of replacing them.
