Nvidia Markets New ‘Robot Brain,’ Yours for Just $3,499

At the turn of the decade, Nvidia was a chip company best known for making GPUs for video games. And, after two years of rapid transformation that have placed the company at the heart of the artificial intelligence boom, it’s ready to help make IRL robots smarter than your average NPC.

On Monday, semiconductor giant Nvidia started selling a new “robot brain” — dubbed the Jetson Thor — that it says has 7.5 times more artificial intelligence computing power than its predecessor.

The Second Best Opportunity

A developer kit for the Jetson Thor, which starts shipping next month, will cost $3,499, and, Nvidia says, the chip module will allow customers to develop and create robots. Crucially, Jetson Thor chips are capable of delivering highly impressive things that probably mean nothing to you, like 2,070 FP4 teraflops of AI compute within a 130-watt power envelope: That means they’re suited for running large language models and visual models that allow robots to decipher the world around them. So advanced humanoids and other futuristic machines are one step closer.

The announcement comes while Nvidia is on a tear: Last month, it became the first company with a $4 trillion market cap. Its shares have risen 33% this year and roughly 1,100% since OpenAI introduced ChatGPT to the world in November 2022, and sales have tripled in the past two years. Almost all of that has been fueled by its world-leading advanced semiconductors to power increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence. That trend is likely to continue, and CEO Jensen Huang has called robotics the company’s biggest source of potential after AI. In June, he told Nvidia’s annual shareholders meeting that the two together represent “a multitrillion-dollar growth opportunity.” And there is where Jetson Thor comes in:

• Robotics is a tiny part of Nvidia’s business at present, representing about 1% of total revenue, but it’s not new. The Jetson platform was launched in 2014, and the company says over 2 million developers have used its robotics stack since then.
• Robotics is also growing quickly: In May, Nvidia’s automotive and robotics businesses, which are reported together, posted $567 million in sales from the company’s latest quarter, a 72% year-over-year increase. On Monday, Nvidia said Amazon Robotics, Caterpillar, Meta Platforms and humanoid robotics start-up Figure are already adopters of Jetson Thor, while John Deere, OpenAI and robotics firms Physical Intelligence and 1X are evaluating the technology. 

Wait Until Wednesday: Nvidia is slated to release its second-quarter results after the bell on Wednesday. Wall Street analysts remain fiercely bullish on the stock, which represents about 7.5% of the S&P 500. Analysts expect revenue close to $46 billion, slightly above Nvidia’s own outlook of $45 billion. Unfortunately, no brain — robot or human — can see into the future, so you’ll just have to wait one more sleep.