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The world's largest annual event showcasing the most recent personal technologies this week was awash in gadgets from TVs, cars and even washing machines – all equipped with generative artificial intelligence.
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, technology firms including US giants Google and Amazon in addition to South Korea's LG and China's Hisense unveiled recent AI-powered services, showing how transformative technology is upending global industries provides.
The stage was set by Jensen Huang, chief executive of Nvidia, the $3.5 trillion chipmaker whose shares rose greater than 150 percent last 12 months on huge sales of its market-leading graphics processing units, that are needed to power advanced AI models have increased.
During a keynote address by which he unveiled a series of latest products, including a brand new mini-AI supercomputer and a series of foundational AI models on his recent Cosmos platform, Huang told an audience of greater than 6,000 delegates that AI in ” “progressing” at an incredible pace.
He said: “It began with perceptual AI – understanding images, words and sounds. Then generative AI – the creation of text, images and sound.” Next comes an era of “physical AI, AI that may advance, reason, plan and act,” Huang added.
These advances are expected to be utilized in a variety of products over the following 12 months, after the smartphone sector made a serious push towards AI, with Apple, Samsung and Google all launching major recent designs in 2024 will bring to market.
In the automotive sector, Amazon announced that its voice assistant Alexa, which has been expanded to incorporate large language models, will likely be utilized in some BMW vehicles. Semiconductor company Qualcomm also announced recent industry partnerships for its AI technology platform for cars, which guarantees voice assistants and driving aids based on large voice models.
Meanwhile, LG and Samsung announced they might adopt Microsoft's AI co-pilot for his or her TVs, while Google said it might integrate the corporate's Gemini AI assistant into its TV operating system.
Smaller firms also brought other area of interest products onto the market, similar to the wearable technology group Halliday, which introduced lightweight glasses with integrated AI assistants and desired to compete with Meta's best-selling Ray-Ban smart glasses.
Among the more outlandish exhibits was a “modular flying automobile” from Chinese manufacturer Xpeng AeroHT that cost “under $300,000” and includes a foldable aircraft that may be released from the back of a futuristic truck. Japanese beverage maker Kirin unveiled a flavor-enhancing electronic spoon that sends a small electric current to the tongue to create the feeling of added saltiness.
But it was Nvidia's Huang that caused the largest stir. Samsung shares rose 3 percent on Wednesday after Nvidia's chief said he was confident the Korean group would find a way to resolve technical issues which have hampered its production of high-end memory. Samsung shares erased those gains and traded within the red in the next days.
Shares of quantum computing firms similar to Rigetti Computing, IonQ and D-Wave Systems also fell sharply after Huang said the wait to develop “very useful quantum computers” was still greater than 15 years away.
Huang was way more optimistic about robotics, predicting a multitrillion-dollar opportunity from the corporate's AI chips, which power every part from self-driving cars to factory robots.
Apptronik, an organization that uses Nvidia's robotics hardware and software and announced a collaboration with Google's AI lab DeepMind in December, unveiled its “Apollo” robot. The humanoid “all-purpose device” is designed to be used in a wide range of workplaces, from warehouses to nursing homes. The company hopes to sell them for about $50,000.
“Generative AI works thoroughly with a majority of these robots,” CEO Jeff Cardenas told the Financial Times, saying it opens the door to more advanced considering and capabilities.
“What you ought to do is just put a robot in an environment where it may possibly do one task, after which it may possibly get a software update and do the following task,” he said.
Despite the joy about AI this week, some analysts said many consumers remain wary of the technology on account of security and reliability issues.
Analysts at Bank of America wrote Friday that demand for consumer AI products has been “generally weak.”
“Most consumers are searching for a reason to say no,” said Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy, partly because “there aren’t some ways for consumers to experience generative AI yet.”
