Nvidia is investing in Serve Robotics
Nvidia, the maker of graphics chips, is investing $10 million in Uber spinoff Serve Robotics. The funding that the business will get will be utilized to expand the robot delivery service outside Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Nvidia's first sidewalk delivery space investment is part of a long-term relationship in which the two businesses will work together to improve their respective robotic technology wheelhouses.
Nvidia's investment stems from long-standing cooperation with Serve, which employs a range of Nvidia technologies, from edge to cloud-based, according to Gerard Andrews, senior manager of robotics product marketing at Nvidia.
What excites us is the chance to collaborate closely with Servo to push the boundaries of what is achievable in terms of delivery issues.
Servo's robots, which the business claims can operate in specified geofenced regions without the need for a remote operator for security, currently rely on Nvidia's Jetson edge AI platform, hardware, or computer module, which is installed inside the robot and permits autonomous movement.
The company also makes use of Nvidia's perception and mapping tools to help its robots comprehend where they are in the real world and where they need to go. Serve, like most autonomous car firms, simulates its models before putting them on the road, which, like real-world testing, necessitates a wealth of data and photorealistic city maps.
Nvidia provides synthetic data generation tools to train perception algorithms for this purpose.
Offers like this are part of Nvidia's Isaac toolbox, which provides robotics developers with a variety of software solutions ranging from simulation to robotic fleet management. According to Andrews, Nvidia aims to apply the lessons learned through its cooperation with Serve to better its technologies in the developing robotics field.
According to the firm Serve, "we see ourselves as a company that leads with autonomy and scalability of genuine autonomous robots in the real world." Several monetization strategies for sidewalk delivery are now being investigated.
Companies like Coco and, until recently, Tortoise used remote operators to drive robots to their destinations, allowing them to get to the store faster and simpler. Serve opts for the more technically difficult path to full self-management from the start, which necessitates significant computer capacity to handle real-time data processing.
When you walk down the street, anything can happen at any time, and you must be prepared for it. So, in an unexpected twist, it's actually more difficult. The benefit, of course, is that things move more slowly and you have more time to react.
