Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Sees Humanoid Robots In Factories In Less Than 5 Years: 'I Think It's Pretty Good Economics'

Nvidia’s NVDA CEO, Jensen Huang, has projected the widespread deployment of humanoid robots in manufacturing units in the next five years. This prediction was made public during a keynote speech at Nvidia’s annual developer conference in San Jose, California on Tuesday.

What Happened: Huang, in his address, unveiled software tools aimed at enhancing the navigation capabilities of humanoid robots. He suggested that the emergence of humanoid robots is a key indicator of AI becoming pervasive.

In terms of timeline, Huang stated it may be “when, literally, humanoid robots are wandering around, which is not five years away. This is not five-years-away problem, this is a few-years-away problem.”

According to Huang, the manufacturing industry is likely to be the first to adopt humanoid robots extensively. He argued that factory tasks are clearly defined and performed in a controlled environment, which simplifies automation.

“I think it ought to go to factories first. And the reason for that is because the domain is much more guard-railed, and the use case is much more specific,” Huang stated.

As for the economics, the Nvidia CEO stated, “The value of it is very, very easy to determine. The going rate for renting a human robot is probably $100,000 and I think it’s pretty good economics.”

Why It Matters: In August, Morgan Stanley predicted that by 2030, 40,000 humanoids will be working alongside humans in the U.S., with that figure expected to surge to 8 million by 2040 and 63 million by 2055.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Ming Hsun Lee from Bank of America Securities told CNBC that the decline in component costs of humanoid robots will be ‘very fast’ in the next few years leading to widespread adoption.

These predictions resonate with that of Huang and also come on the heels of Nvidia’s recent unveiling of Groot N1, a new foundation model for humanoid robots. This AI brain mimics human cognition and could help address the growing labor gap.

Huang referred to this development as a significant stride in embodied AI. The introduction of humanoid robots in the manufacturing sector could potentially revolutionize the industry, marking a new era of automation and efficiency. Also, this evolution presents a great opportunity for Nvidia to capture.