Nvidia unveils real life sci-fi at AI Summit
Nvidia unveiled groundbreaking advancements in AI at its summit in Washington, D.C., showcasing applications from AI agents to robotic factories and weather prediction. The company highlighted its Blackwell AI Supercluster platforms, featuring 32,000 GPUs, and introduced NIM agent blueprints for various sectors. CEO Jensen Huang discussed the rise of physical AI and partnerships with major companies to enhance communication networks. Nvidia also presented Earth 2, a digital replica of Earth for environmental analysis, and the Holoscan Platform for astronomical research, aiming to detect extraterrestrial life.
Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) revealed the next phase of artificial intelligence, with applications spanning from advanced AI agents to factories run by robots to weather prediction to curing cancer to contacting extraterrestrial lifeforms.
At the heart of all these lofty goals centered Nvidia hardware and software stacks. This includes the current build out of AI factories, full data centers housing 32,000 GPUs with liquid cooling, dubbed Blackwell AI Supercluster platforms.
"This is a marvel of engineering," said Bob Pette, Nvidia's vice president and general manager of enterprise platforms, during his keynote address at Nvidia's AI Summit in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. "Then you add CUDA libraries and LLMs and the Omniverse. It's about training our AIs to exist in the real world for the better."
"We are still expected to increase (Blackwell) volume during the fourth quarter of this year," he added. "Some of our biggest and best systems will be shipping during this next quarter."
AI is expected to have a collective $20T impact from all the industries utilizing the technology, Pette said.
Nvidia shares climbed 3.5% by early afternoon trading.
NIM agent blueprints
Pette introduced Nvidia NIM agent blueprints. These include blueprints for an AI agent such as James, a digital avatar for customer service. Other NIM agent blueprints assist in cybersecurity, genomic analysis and some even allow researchers to test the effectiveness of new drugs without even entering a laboratory.
"ServiceNow (NOW) uses our NIMs," Pette said. "There are very specific new assistants for the public sector, telecom and healthcare, all based on our software. One size doesn't fit all. ServiceNow is digging into specific use cases."
"These are not applications," he added. "These are workflows. These are like Hello Fresh. You get the recipe and the ingredients, and you can make a nice meal. But you can add to the meal - make it spicy. We want to give people the tools to build their own blueprints."
Physical AI, Earth 2 and aliens
The next wave of AI, according to Nvidia, is physical AI, which is basically robots interacting in the physical world, while being controlled by remote computers.
"Foxconn (OTCPK:FXCOF) is the world's largest electronics manufacturer," said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. "It is training robots. It is building robotics manufacturing facilities with Nvidia AI."
Other examples of physical AI uses include the enhancement of communication networks. Pette said Ansys (ANSS), T-Mobile (TMUS), Ericsson (ERIC) and SoftBank (OTCPK:SFTBY) are all using AI tools to improve networks.
Nvidia announced the Nvidia Aerial RAN computer, which enables telecom companies to increase 5G coverage and prepare for 6G.
Pette also provided details of Nvidia's Earth 2, which is a digital duplicate of the planet, allowing for uses such as analysis of weather patterns and natural disasters as well as wildfire detection and mitigation.
Finally, Pette revealed the Nvidia Holoscan Platform for Remote Sensing. This is being deployed by the SETI Institute "to better understand new and rare astronomical phenomena" in the hunt for signs of life beyond Earth.
"We're on the cusp of a fundamentally different way of analyzing streaming astronomical data, and the kinds of things we'll be able to discover with it will be quite amazing," said Andrew Siemion, Bernard M. Oliver Chair at the SETI Institute.