The humanoid robot of the future is a 6-foot-tall beefcake with a Chinese body and an American mind

Human robot The future is a huge model with a body made into it China And the mind that works American silicon.

This week, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced a blueprint for the robot, which combines a few different things: a 6-foot-tall, 150-pound robot called H2 Plus from Unitree, a Chinese high-flying robotics startup; Thor T5000 Nvidia chip; Advanced human hand; And a new set of software, making it easier to program and train the device. Combined, they will make it easier for researchers, including US academic laboratories, to synthesize cutting-edge technologies humanoids And train them using their own artificial intelligence algorithms.

The Thor chip can run powerful AI models that allow the robot to understand its environment and control its movements, while the body features Unitree actuators, actuators and sensors. The human-like dexterous hand is from the Singaporean company Sharpa Can do it all From card tricks to apple peeling. (Ingenuity It remains a major unsolved problem in robotics.)

Spencer Huang, Nvidia’s robotics product manager, told WIRED that the company wants to make its silicon intelligence available to as many robotics companies as possible. “Untree is the first, but it won’t be the last by far,” Huang said. (Yes, he’s Jensen’s son.) He added that the technology in the H2 could make other Chinese robots, including conventional industrial weapons, more capable.

In some ways, the partnership is unexpected: robotics has emerged as a crucial new arena for technological competition between the United States and China, and some politicians have begun Proposed ban on Chinese humanoid robots completely. Last year, security researchers He claimed That Unitree bots were able to capture and transmit data, increasing security risks.

But on the other hand, building a team makes perfect sense. “This is a fascinating development,” says Scott Singer, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who studies AI governance and China. Singer points out that while the United States has the best AI chips in the world, China’s supply chain gives its robotics companies a hardware advantage. “Both sides have key parts of the supply chain that they might be able to weaponize, but here they are working together,” he says.

Courtesy of Nvidia

Nvidia, for its part, appears to be aware of the security concerns. Along with nimble fingers and a new brain, the new H2 Plus planner comes with security features that seem designed to reassure users that their data and models are safe.