NVIDIA Announces Jetson TX@ AI platform for Manufacturing Smart Devices (like drones!)

NVIDIA today unveiled the NVIDIA® Jetson™ TX2, a credit card-sized platform that delivers AI computing at the edge — opening the door to powerfully intelligent factory robots, commercial drones and smart cameras for AI cities. What NVIDIA means by “at the edge” is computing power handled within the device. Certain processing can occur on the device before it is moved to say a cloud based platform.

In a presentation to the press Deepu Talla, VP of the Tegra business unit at NVIDIA, outlined the benefits of AI computing at the edge which include improved bandwidth, reduced latency, enhanced privacy, and better availability. Availability is crucial in locations where internet connections and other communications channels are unreliable. Mr. Talla is responsible for deploying AI technology in autonomous machines and intelligent devices, such as video analytics, factory automation, and UAVs.

Jetson TX2 offers twice the performance of its predecessor, or it can run at more than twice the power efficiency, while drawing less than 7.5 watts of power. This allows Jetson TX2 to run larger, deeper neural networks on edge devices. The result: smarter devices with higher accuracy and faster response times for tasks like image classification, navigation and speech recognition.

“Jetson TX2 brings powerful AI capabilities at the edge, making possible a new class of intelligent machines,” Talla said. “These devices will enable intelligent video analytics that keep our cities smarter and safer, new kinds of robots that optimize manufacturing, and new collaboration that makes long-distance work more efficient.”

The Jetson TX2 joins the Jetson TX1 and TK1 products for embedded computing. Jetson is an open platform that is accessible to anyone for developing advanced AI solutions at the edge — from enterprise companies and startups to researchers and high school students.

“For years, NVIDIA has demonstrated its commitment to FIRST through multifaceted support by providing Jetson developer kits for robot builds, online training resources, and team and event funding,” said Donald E. Bossi, president of FIRST, an international K-12 nonprofit focused on science and technology. “Through these efforts, NVIDIA is helping to inspire more young students to become innovators and inventors.”

Two drone companies that are integrating NVIDIA’s platform are Teal Drones and enRoute.

System Specs and Software

Key features of Jetson TX2 include:

• GPU: 256-core NVIDIA Pascal™ architecture-based GPU offering best-in-class performance
• CPU: Dual 64-bit NVIDIA Denver 2, Quad ARM® A57
• Video: 4K x 2K 60fps encode and decode
• Camera: 12 CSI lanes supporting up to 6 cameras; 2.5 gigabytes/second/lane
• Memory: 8GB LPDDR4; 58.3 gigabytes/second
• Storage: 32GB eMMC
• Connectivity: 802.11ac WLAN, Bluetooth
• Networking: 1GB Ethernet
• OS Support: Linux for Tegra®
• Size: 50mm x 87mm

The Jetson family is supported by the most comprehensive SDK for AI computing, JetPack 3.0,
which makes it easy to integrate AI into a wide variety of applications, and support the
following:

• TensorRT™ 1.0, a high-performance neural network interference engine for production
  deployment of deep learning applications
• cuDNN 5.1, a GPU-accelerated library of primitives for deep neural networks
• VisionWorks™ 1.6, a software development package for computer vision and image processing
• The latest graphics drivers and APIs, including OpenGL 4.5, OpenGL ES 3.2, EGL 1.4 and
  Vulkan 1.0
• CUDA® 8, which turns the GPU into a general-purpose massively parallel processor,
  giving developers access to tremendous performance and power-efficiency

Availability

The NVIDIA Jetson TX2 Developer Kit, which includes the carrier board and Jetson TX2 module,
can be preordered today for $599 in the United States and Europe and will begin shipping
March 14. It will be available in other regions in the coming weeks. The Jetson TX2 module will
be available in Q2 for $399 (in quantities of 1,000 or more) from NVIDIA and its distributors
around the world. The price of the Jetson TX1 Developer Kit has been reduced to $499.