M+E Connections

Nvidia, Samsung, Toyota Tout AI at CES

LAS VEGAS — Artificial intelligence (AI) was expected to have a strong presence at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), and it wound up having a major role in multiple company news conferences and the keynote that Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang gave on the eve of the show, Jan. 4.

“Today, Nvidia is at the center of the greatest computing challenge of all time: artificial intelligence,” Consumer Technology Association President Gary Shapiro said before introducing Huang. Shapiro added: “Next year, Tesla cars will hit the road with fully autonomous capabilities powered by Nvidia’s AI Car Computer.”

Huang immediately jumped into AI at the start of his keynote, saying: “We are going through, unquestionably, the most exciting time in the computer industry that all of us have ever witnessed. What we thought was going to be science fiction for years to come is becoming reality as we speak.”

Nvidia’s work is now “dedicated towards a computing model focused on visual and AI computing,” and it’s “built on top of the GPU that we pioneered,” he said.

AI is also playing a key role, along with virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), in the interactive game industry that Nvidia’s processors have been a major part of for years, he noted, saying: “All of a sudden, all the technologies are coming together for us to finally achieve virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality and bring together the experience of the holodeck, for real, for the first time.”

AI supercomputers are also “being built all over the world today so that all of you, when you’re talking to the Internet, when you’re making queries those searches all pass through artificial intelligence, so that” the assistance one gets from a query is “much more helpful to you,” he said.

Scott Keogh, president of Audi of America, joined Huang to announce that their companies are working together to put advanced AI cars on the road by 2020.
Huang also provided details on partnerships with mapping companies Here and Zenrin as well as ZF and Bosch, two of the world’s largest automotive suppliers. GF is working with Nvidia to develop AI systems for the transportation industry, including automated and autonomous driving systems for passenger cars, commercial trucks and industrial applications, GF said in a news release.

The ZF ProAI for highway automated driving, unveiled at CES, is ZF’s first in-vehicle system developed using Nvidia AI technology, and “will enable vehicles to better understand their environment by using deep learning to process sensor and camera data,” GF said. The companies are also “developing solutions for more advanced highly automated driving — in which systems have the capability to control the vehicle with greater levels of autonomy,” it said. ZF ProAI will use the scalable Nvidia DRIVE PX 2 AI computing platform to process inputs from multiple cameras, plus radar and ultrasonic sensors, GF said. ZF ProAI “will have the capability to understand in real time what is happening around a vehicle, precisely locate itself on an HD map and plan a safe path forward,” it said.

The Nvidia initiatives are all part of its effort to reinvent the $10 trillion transportation industry with the AI car — vehicles that use deep learning-based AI to “make driving safer, more personalized and more enjoyable,” Nvidia said in a separate news release.

Nvidia also said its AI Co-Pilot system will help a car understand its owner/driver, as well as the world around it. The system includes AI for natural speech recognition, to pick up the user’s spoken commands, and an AI for face recognition, so that the car knows who the driver is, setting personal preferences and eliminating the need for a key, the company said.

There is also AI for gaze detection, so that a car knows if the driver is paying attention or not, and an AI that can read the driver’s lips when that person says the name of the next song he or she wants to play, even if the radio is very loud, it said.

In addition to the AIs within the car, AI Co-Pilot integrates external sensors so that it can tell the driver when there’s a bicycle pulling out into traffic as the car is about to make a turn, or if a pedestrian has stepped into the road, it said. The new AI Auto-Pilot function, meanwhile, enables the car to drive itself, “combining input from an array of sensors, HD maps and — thanks to the ability to share data — a far deeper well of experience than even the most seasoned driver,” Nvidia said.

Toyota used its CES news conference the same day to show an AI-powered concept vehicle.

The car maker said it is “aggressively pursuing the development of connected technologies and artificial intelligence because we understand that they will define our society in ways that go well beyond the auto industry.”

Separately, Samsung disclosed at its news conference that its new Family Hub 2.0 line of smart refrigerators has added the company’s advanced, AI-driven voice technology. From only four refrigerators last year, Samsung has boosted the new line to 10 models. LG Electronics, earlier in the day, announced that its new flagship Smart InstaView Door-in-Door refrigerator now features Amazon’s AI-powered Alexa Voice Service. LG also announced a line of robotic devices that includes the Hub Robot, featuring Amazon Alexa voice recognition.