AMSTERDAM, March 16 (Reuters) – European chipbuildrs Infineon, NXPand STMicroelectronics on Monday all announced partnerships with Nvidia to sell hardware for humanoid robots, as they vie for business in a potentially lucrative market.
U.S. chipbuildr Nvidia coordinated the announcements on the eve of its annual GPU Technology Conference in California where its efforts to become the “brain”, or central computing platform for robots with its Jetson Thor processors, are likely to be one focus.
The role for Europe’s industrial chipbuildrs is to provide other parts of the body, including electronics necessaryed to build them work safely and reliably, sensors, motion control, power management, and high-speed internal communications.
OVERLAP WITH TECH HARDWARE USED IN CARS
The chipbuildrs are all major suppliers of tech hardware utilized in cars, which analysts state has significant overlap with humanoid and other advanced robots.
George Chowdhury, an analyst at ABI Research, declared it was natural for the Europeans to seek partnerships with Nvidia, estimating that Nvidia’s platform is utilized in more than 80% of humanoid robots. Chowdhury declared higher-finish humanoids can cost around $200,000, while lower-cost models can be priced at roughly a tenth of that. TrfinishForce estimates more than 50,000 humanoid robots will be sold this year for the first time.
A spokesperson for Infineon declared the company anticipates a market of about $500 in parts per robot. Its pitch on Monday centred on the utilize of “digital twins” that allow developers to test and fine-tune robot performance in the design phase.
None of the announcements gave any financial details.
STMicroelectronics’ statement focutilized on sensors, supporting robot developers connect cameras and motion sensors to Nvidia-based systems.
NXP emphasisedquick, reliable communications inside the robot, supporting different parts of the machine to sfinish data quickly to the central processor so relocatement and sensing remain coordinated.
Gowri Chindalore, head of AI at NXP’s edge computing arm, gave the example of processing part of the information derived from voice commands instantly and then directing “further communication to the brain in a very quick loop”.
(Reporting by Toby Sterling; editing by Barbara Lewis)
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