For Nvidia, the last few years have been eventful. Softbank has been ramping up production to help deal with the chip scarcity in between trying again and again, despite the disapproval of numerous governments, to eventually fail to purchase Arm from Softbank. It’s even collaborating on a massive AI research computer with Meta, which Nvidia recently surpassed to become the US’s seventh-largest firm. With recent company changes, Meta may have done some of that to itself.
But what’s next for Nvidia now that the Arm agreement is no longer on the table? It’s all about going forward with the metaverse, the Omniverse, and self-driving cars, according to Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO of Nvidia and one of Time’s most influential people of 2021.
However, new technologies such as Nvidia’s scalable, powerful 3D simulator, Omniverse, are on the horizon. It’s mostly used for mimicking real-world scenarios in a way that can be collaboratively developed and tested before going into full production. As a result, it’s frequently associated with metaverse trials, or at the very least, the ability to create realistic 3D spaces. Aside from Nvidia’s own goals of creating a digital Earth 2 for climate modeling, it appears to be widely used by businesses.
“It’s being used to link designers and makers.” They’re simulating logistics warehouses and factories with it. Because we imitate sensors physically and accurately, they’re using them to generate synthetic data. You could use it to simulate data acquired from LiDAR, radars, and, of course, cameras for training AIs,” Huang stated.
When it comes to the metaverse, Huang was less detailed but expressed hope that it would be an open platform based on the Pixar-designed Universal Scene Description, which is also used in the Omniverse concept. Given what we’ve seen thus far about the metaverse, one of the last things that spring to mind is the word “open.” Instead, it appears to be capitalist profiteering and market research, making the expectation of a more open platform one of the more positive options. Hopefully, Nvidia can assist in the creation of one that does not resemble whatever this is.
In the interview, Huang expresses confidence in Nvidia’s future with autonomous vehicles. For the time being, the CEO wasn’t talking about consumer cars, but rather a warehouse robots or short-distance deliveries.
They’re known as AMRs or autonomous moving robots. You could put them inside walled factories and have them transport commodities and inventories. Like Neuro and others, you may be delivering things across the last mile. All of these fantastic companies specialize in last-mile delivery. “As long as you don’t overpromise, all of those applications are extremely doable.”
He went on to emphasize the importance of Nvidia’s automotive segment for the firm’s future, and given that this is a company that makes us think of PCs rather than moving vehicles, it appears to be a major focus for the company going forward.
In an interview with VentureBeat, Huang discusses the techniques Nvidia will employ going forward, despite the failure of the Arm merger. Unsurprisingly, this includes continuing to develop CPUs, GPUs, and DPUs for whichever architecture is appropriate at the time.
