Alibaba integrates Nvidia’s AI robotics tools on cloud platform

Alibaba Group Holding and Nvidia on Wednesday unveiled a collaboration that will see the US semiconductor giant’s suite of “physical” artificial intelligence tools integrated into the Chinese tech firm’s machine learning-focused cloud platform for AI.

Users of Alibaba Cloud, the AI and cloud computing services unit of Alibaba, are now able to access Nvidia’s embodied AI development toolkit, including data processing, real-world reinforcement learning and model training, according to the announcement in Hangzhou at the opening of this year’s Apsara Conference, which concludes on Friday. Alibaba owns the Post.

Embodied AI refers to AI systems that interact with the physical world, including robots and autonomous vehicles.

This marked the second consecutive Apsara conference in which Alibaba Cloud and Nvidia joined forces in an AI initiative, reflecting a deepening bond between the firm behind the popular Qwen models and the world’s top designer of graphics processing units.

At last year’s conference, Alibaba Cloud launched a large multimodal model solution for automotive applications that it co-developed with Nvidia and Banma Network Technology, Alibaba’s intelligent cockpit solution provider.

That model was integrated into Nvidia’s Drive automotive platform, which major Chinese electric vehicle makers, including Li Auto and Great Wall Motor, are using as the brains for intelligent automated driving systems.

While the two firms’ latest announcement was not that surprising, given that Nvidia previously collaborated with major cloud operators such as Amazon Web Services, the partnership was a positive signal for Chinese embodied AI companies building robots and humanoids, according to Tilly Zhang, a Beijing-based tech analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics.