Humanoid robot future is a massive specimen with a body made in China and a brain based on American silicon.
This week, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced a bot project that combines a few different things: a 6-foot, 150-pound robot called H2 Plus from Unitree, a high-flying Chinese robotics startup; Thor T5000 Nvidia chip; advanced humanoid hand; and a novel software package that makes programming and training the machine easier. Together, they will make it easier for researchers, including American academic laboratories, to assemble state-of-the-art humanoids and train them using their own artificial intelligence algorithms.
The Thor chip can run powerful artificial intelligence models that allow the bot to understand its surroundings and control its movements, while the body houses Unitree’s motors, actuators and sensors. The skillful, human hand of the Singaporean company Sharpa can do anything from card tricks to peeling an apple. (Dexterity remains a key unsolved problem in robotics.)
Spencer Huang, Nvidia’s chief robotics product officer, told WIRED that the company wants to supply its silicon sharp devices to as many humanoid companies as possible. “Unitree is the first, but definitely not the last,” Huang said. (Yes, he is Jensen’s son). He added that the technology used in the H2 could potentially escalate the performance of other Chinese robots, including conventional industrial weapons.
In some respects, the partnership is unexpected: Robotics has become a key novel arena for U.S.-China technology competition, and some policymakers proposed a ban on Chinese humanoids entirely. Last year, security researchers he claimed that Unitree robots were able to capture and transmit data, which increases the security risk.
But in other ways, putting the band together makes sense. “This is a fascinating development,” says Scott Singer, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who studies artificial intelligence governance and China. Singer notes that while the United States has the world’s best AI chips, China’s supply chain gives robotics companies a hardware advantage. “Both sides have key parts of the supply chain that they can weaponize, but here they are cooperating,” he says.
Courtesy of NVIDIA
For its part, Nvidia appears to be aware of the security concerns. In addition to nimble fingers and a novel brain, the novel H2 Plus design comes with security features that seem aimed at reassuring users that their data and models are sheltered.