[Report] "The Era of Robots with ChatGPT Arrives"... Robots Roaming Nvidia Exhibition Hall

Robots and Cars Deployed at CES Venue
Offering Handshakes and Drinks
Toyota Discusses Autonomous Driving... Vehicle Display Draws Attention

Nvidia, a key semiconductor company in the artificial intelligence (AI) era, experienced a rollercoaster day. Ahead of CEO Jensen Huang's keynote speech at CES, the world's largest consumer electronics and IT exhibition, Nvidia's stock price hit an all-time high on the 6th (local time), but fell by 6% the next day, the 7th, due to disappointment. Nevertheless, Nvidia set up a separate space outside the event venue to hold Q&A sessions and product exhibitions, aiming to prove that their expectations were correct.

On the 7th (local time), a humanoid robot from China's Unitree is shaking hands with the audience at NVIDIA's exhibition hall. Photo by Baek Jong-min

The first thing that caught attention at the event was the robots. It seemed to confirm Jensen Huang's emphatic statement in the keynote the day before that "the era of robots with ChatGPT is coming," as two robots greeted guests at the exhibition. The Galbot robot, equipped with Nvidia technology, accurately found and picked up drinks ordered via tablet. However, it was slow and even dropped a bottle of cola at the end. It appeared that further development was still needed.

Galbot's robot accurately found and placed the drink ordered via tablet, but appeared somewhat clumsy. Photo by Baek Jongmin

The humanoid robot from Unitree was shaking hands with guests. However, it took quite a long time from offering a handshake to actually grasping the hand. The active movements seen in promotional videos were hard to find. A bigger issue was that the robots needed frequent breaks. The Unitree robot was comfortably charging while sitting on a chair. A Galbot representative said, "The battery needs to be charged." Contrary to Jensen Huang's declaration, it seemed that much more time was needed for robot development.

Toyota's vehicle, which will collaborate with NVIDIA on autonomous driving research, was exhibited at NVIDIA's CES booth. Photo by Jongmin Baek

Toyota and Volvo vehicles, which agreed to collaborate with Nvidia, were also exhibited. Toyota vehicles prominently displayed the logos of Nuro, an autonomous delivery company invested in by Toyota, and Nvidia. Jensen Huang announced the start of autonomous driving collaboration with Toyota in his keynote the day before. In front of Volvo's EX90 vehicle stood a sign stating, "The safest Volvo vehicle made using Nvidia technology."

At the exhibition hall, graphics cards and laptop computers using the RTX 50 series GPUs were displayed. Most were produced by Taiwanese companies such as ASUS. There were no products from Samsung Electronics or LG Electronics among the laptops either. This suggested that, aside from high-bandwidth memory (HBM), there are very few domestic companies collaborating with Nvidia.

NVIDIA unveiled the ultra-compact personal AI supercomputer 'Project Digist.' It appeared slightly larger than a cigarette pack. Photo by Baek Jongmin

The latest model of the DGX, well known for its golden color, the "DGX GB200," was also exhibited. Nvidia explained that this system operates 850 Blackwell chips as one. The newly introduced ultra-compact personal AI supercomputer, "Project Digits," was so small that it was hard to think of it as a computer, let alone a supercomputer. Nvidia expects Project Digits to be utilized by small and medium-sized enterprises or schools that find it difficult to purchase expensive GPUs. Project Digits will be sold from May at a price of $3,000.