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It really depends on how the market shapes up. You might see one software company rise to dominance where they interoperate with different platforms interchange

It really depends on how the market shapes up. You might see one software company rise to dominance where they interoperate with different platforms interchangeably, or you might see a single hardware vendor come to dominate a number of much smaller software vendors. NVidia is the horse to bet on now, but it remains to be seen how they can can expand beyond their current model of leaning heavily on their GPU technology. As AI becomes more pervasive you'll want to have it integrated into smaller, more power conscious devices, such as would be the case in robotics. Does NVidia have a solution here that scales down? Clearly they're focused on scaling up, as that's where the money is today.

Teever 10y ago
They don't necessarily have to scale down to get the benefits of AI in side smaller devices such as robotics. There's no reason why the robotics devices can't or won't be equipped with a variety of radios to facilitate communication. The AI agent can easily be somewhere centralized where power isn't a big deal. Then the robot stops being analogous to an animal with it's own brain and starts being something more like an appendage. Or maybe they'll be like those magical mops in Fantasia.
- dontreact 10y ago
  At least two good reasons that you would have things running locally: Latency sensitive applications Privacy sensitive applications
- eloff 10y ago
  Oh god, imagine being in a self driving car that does it's computing in the cloud - and then you enter a tunnel. Obviously cars are not really power or space limited and they can't rely in connectivity. But it's funny to think about anyway.
  - Teever 10y ago
    I'm thinking more like warehouse or factory that has a central rack-server and all the robots in the factory are wirelessly connected to it. People look at a humanoid robot and they see an entity that is similar to a human but made of silicone and steel instead of meat and bone. I think it's more accurate to compare the robots in this factory to the hands and eyes of a large disembodied rackmount brain.
- astrodust 10y ago
  There could come a day when you have to sign in to Facebook to use your car, like if they get to harass you with advertising the trip's free.
  - AJ007 10y ago
    Optimistically your car, perhaps instead their car.
tnecniv 10y ago
There's the Jetson boards, which are ARM + an NVidia GPU wrapped into one small package.
- astrodust 10y ago
  That's an interesting device: http://www.nvidia.ca/object/jetson-tk1-embedded-dev-kit.html http://www.nvidia.ca/object/jetson-tk1-embedded-dev-kit.html Also can't remember the last time I saw a USB port jammed on sideways.
nl 10y ago
Does NVidia have a solution here that scales down? Clearly they're focused on scaling up, as that's where the money is today. Yes, they have invested heavily in this. Everytime they talk about their "car/auto segment" (which is all the time if you listen to their investor calls) it's mostly about scale-down.
- astrodust 10y ago
  Cars, especially the sort that will need to do self-driving, will have massive batteries in them. I'm talking about Roomba-sized devices where they can't power a full GPU worth of gear.
  - imtringued 10y ago
    Where did you get the nonsensical idea that they are going to use desktop GPUs in cars? The board they specifically designed for self driving cars merely needs a few watts for 500 GFLOPS. Why would this not be suitable for a "Roomba-sized device"? https://m.f.ix.de/scale/geometry/1280/q50/imgs/18/1/6/4/4/6/7/0/Jetson_TX1_16-9-3f0a4a7015bbda4b.jpeg@jpg https://m.f.ix.de/scale/geometry/1280/q50/imgs/18/1/6/4/4/6/...
    - astrodust 10y ago
      Google packs their cars to the gills with hardware, so just going based on what fully autonomous systems use today.
  - nl 10y ago
    They may have large batteries if they are electric cars, but it won't be for the GPUs. The NVidia PX2 platform[1] - which is what the Telsa self-driving features uses[2] - is available in a 10W config. I presume this isn't the full self-driving mode, but the Jetson TK1 can do full image tracking and recognition in less than 30W (and that is a 2 year old platform). [1] http://www.nvidia.com/object/drive-px.html http://www.nvidia.com/object/drive-px.html [2] https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/10/20/tesla-motors-self-driving/ https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/10/20/tesla-motors-self-d... [3] http://developer.download.nvidia.com/embedded/jetson/TK1/docs/Jetson_TK1_FAQ_2014May01_V2.pdf http://developer.download.nvidia.com/embedded/jetson/TK1/doc...

Teever 10y ago

They don't necessarily have to scale down to get the benefits of AI in side smaller devices such as robotics. There's no reason why the robotics devices can't or won't be equipped with a variety of radios to facilitate communication. The AI agent can easily be somewhere centralized where power isn't a big deal. Then the robot stops being analogous to an animal with it's own brain and starts being something more like an appendage. Or maybe they'll be like those magical mops in Fantasia.

dontreact 10y ago
At least two good reasons that you would have things running locally: Latency sensitive applications Privacy sensitive applications
eloff 10y ago
Oh god, imagine being in a self driving car that does it's computing in the cloud - and then you enter a tunnel. Obviously cars are not really power or space limited and they can't rely in connectivity. But it's funny to think about anyway.
- Teever 10y ago
  I'm thinking more like warehouse or factory that has a central rack-server and all the robots in the factory are wirelessly connected to it. People look at a humanoid robot and they see an entity that is similar to a human but made of silicone and steel instead of meat and bone. I think it's more accurate to compare the robots in this factory to the hands and eyes of a large disembodied rackmount brain.
astrodust 10y ago
There could come a day when you have to sign in to Facebook to use your car, like if they get to harass you with advertising the trip's free.
- AJ007 10y ago
  Optimistically your car, perhaps instead their car.

tnecniv 10y ago

There's the Jetson boards, which are ARM + an NVidia GPU wrapped into one small package.

astrodust 10y ago
That's an interesting device: http://www.nvidia.ca/object/jetson-tk1-embedded-dev-kit.html http://www.nvidia.ca/object/jetson-tk1-embedded-dev-kit.html Also can't remember the last time I saw a USB port jammed on sideways.

nl 10y ago

Does NVidia have a solution here that scales down? Clearly they're focused on scaling up, as that's where the money is today. Yes, they have invested heavily in this. Everytime they talk about their "car/auto segment" (which is all the time if you listen to their investor calls) it's mostly about scale-down.

astrodust 10y ago
Cars, especially the sort that will need to do self-driving, will have massive batteries in them. I'm talking about Roomba-sized devices where they can't power a full GPU worth of gear.
- imtringued 10y ago
  Where did you get the nonsensical idea that they are going to use desktop GPUs in cars? The board they specifically designed for self driving cars merely needs a few watts for 500 GFLOPS. Why would this not be suitable for a "Roomba-sized device"? https://m.f.ix.de/scale/geometry/1280/q50/imgs/18/1/6/4/4/6/7/0/Jetson_TX1_16-9-3f0a4a7015bbda4b.jpeg@jpg https://m.f.ix.de/scale/geometry/1280/q50/imgs/18/1/6/4/4/6/...
  - astrodust 10y ago
    Google packs their cars to the gills with hardware, so just going based on what fully autonomous systems use today.
- nl 10y ago
  They may have large batteries if they are electric cars, but it won't be for the GPUs. The NVidia PX2 platform[1] - which is what the Telsa self-driving features uses[2] - is available in a 10W config. I presume this isn't the full self-driving mode, but the Jetson TK1 can do full image tracking and recognition in less than 30W (and that is a 2 year old platform). [1] http://www.nvidia.com/object/drive-px.html http://www.nvidia.com/object/drive-px.html [2] https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/10/20/tesla-motors-self-driving/ https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/10/20/tesla-motors-self-d... [3] http://developer.download.nvidia.com/embedded/jetson/TK1/docs/Jetson_TK1_FAQ_2014May01_V2.pdf http://developer.download.nvidia.com/embedded/jetson/TK1/doc...