Nvidia has unveiled a foundation model to boost to robot reasoning and skills in humanoid robots.
US-based chipmaker Nvidia this week unveiled a portfolio of new technologies, including a customisable foundation model for generalised humanoid reasoning and skills.
Named Nvidia Isaac GR00T N1, the foundation model software was unveiled at the company’s annual developer conference in San Jose, California.
In a statement, Nvidia says GR00T N1 is the first of a family of fully-customisable models it will pre-train and release to worldwide robotics developers. The software is available now.
“The age of generalist robotics is here,” says Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia. “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.”
Humanoid robots gained prominence several years ago with the debut of Sophia, the social humanoid developed by Hong Kong-based artificial intelligence firm Hanson Robotics.
Nvidia Isaac GR00T is a research and development platform for developing general-purpose robot foundation models and data pipelines to accelerate humanoid robotics research and development.
According to Nvidia, it features a dual-system architecture, inspired by principles of human cognition. System 1 is a fast-thinking action model, mirroring human reflexes or intuition, while System 2 is a slow-thinking model for deliberate, methodical decision-making.
“Powered by a vision language model, System 2 reasons about its environment and the instructions it has received to plan actions. System 1 then translates these plans into precise, continuous robot movements.
“Developers and researchers can post-train GR00T N1 with real or synthetic data for their specific humanoid robot or task.”
During the keynote address at the launch, Huang demonstrated the 1X Technologies humanoid robot performing domestic tidying tasks using a post-trained policy built on GR00T N1. The robot’s autonomous capabilities are the result of an AI training collaboration between 1X and Nvidia.
“The future of humanoids is about adaptability and learning,” explains Bernt Børnich, CEO of 1X. “While we develop our own models, Nvidia’s GR00T N1 provides a significant boost to robot reasoning and skills.
“With minimal post-training data, we fully deployed on NEO Gamma – advancing our mission of creating robots that are not just tools, but companions capable of assisting humans in meaningful, immeasurable ways.”
Other humanoid developers with early access to GR00T N1 include Agility Robotics,Boston Dynamics, Mentee Robotics and Neura Robotics.
