[Peace&Chips] Robot Met at NVIDIA GTC: "AI Chip Importance Grows"

Various Robots Met at AI Developer Festival
From Humanoid Robots to Robot Dogs

Importance of AI Semiconductors in the Humanoid Robot Era
Jensen Huang "Everything That Moves Will Become a Robot"

NVIDIA held 'GTC 2024' last week in San Jose, California, USA. GTC stands for 'Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) Technology Conference' and is a festival for artificial intelligence (AI) developers. This year, the event was held on a large scale as NVIDIA, a GPU company, significantly expanded its size thanks to the AI boom.

At the GTC venue, not only AI startups and software companies but also many related companies from fields such as semiconductors and automobiles exhibited, attracting attention. In particular, robots appeared in various places, capturing the eyes of visitors.

Humanoid robot 'Apolla' at the NVIDIA exhibition booth at 'GTC 2024' held at the San Jose Convention Center in the United States / Photo by Kim Pyeonghwa

The humanoid robot 'Apolla' that could be seen at the NVIDIA exhibition booth was busy taking photos with visitors. At the booth of the American semiconductor company Micron, there was a robot dog named 'Scooby' controlled by an employee. Barista robots could also be found here and there.

These days, it seems that the keywords AI and robots appear everywhere, and there are especially many mentions of humanoid robots. As the English word suggests, humanoid robots refer to robots that resemble humans in appearance.

Recently, with rapid technological development, expectations for humanoid robots that not only look like humans but also think and speak like humans are growing. It is said that this can be realized as AI takes on the role of the robot's brain.

In this process, semiconductors are also expected to increase their usage. As the humanoid robot market grows and competition among related companies intensifies, whether they have secured AI semiconductors that enhance brain performance becomes important.

Robot dog 'Scooby' at the Micron exhibition booth at 'GTC 2024' held at the San Jose Convention Center in the United States / Photo by Kim Pyeonghwa

Robot expert Kyungchul Ko, Executive Director of KoYoung Technology, said, "Humanoid robots are robots that live and serve alongside humans," adding, "The more advanced the functions required, the more important AI semiconductors will become." He also said, "Currently, GPUs represent AI semiconductors, but in the future, it could shift to AI-dedicated semiconductors such as Tensor Processing Units (TPUs)."

GPUs were originally processors created to optimize graphic tasks. Thanks to their characteristic of processing simple tasks in large quantities, they are also widely used in AI fields that require large-scale data training. However, as AI performance advances, it is said that dedicated semiconductors will become essential.

TPUs are specialized processors optimized for AI training, developed by Google. In addition, AI-dedicated semiconductors such as Neural Processing Units (NPUs) and Data Processing Units (DPUs) are emerging one after another. Although the detailed technologies differ, these products share the common goal of maximizing AI usage.

What about the memory semiconductor sector? The memory industry currently sees that the memory used in general robots is limited, but if AI advances, memory usage will be essential in the data processing process. It is expected that increasingly larger capacity and high-performance memory will be needed.

An industry insider said, "If on-device AI (AI running inside the device) is applied to humanoid robots and the importance of data processing and storage increases, then more memory will likely be applied."

Meanwhile, Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, expressed his commitment to the robot business during his keynote speech on the first day of the GTC event on the 18th (local time). He introduced a self-trained robot and unveiled the dedicated chipset 'Jetson Thor' designed for humanoid robots. CEO Jensen Huang said, "Everything that moves will become a robot in the future."

Editor's NoteSemiconductors, called the rice of modern industry. Although it is a term we hear every day, it is often difficult to explain. Peace & Chips will easily feed you the concept of semiconductors and the overall flow of the industry. Just put your spoon on it.