Nvidia, the $3 trillion chipmaker powering much of the artificial intelligence revolution, is expanding its presence in Pittsburgh.
The global company, which has long powered AI research and development in the city, has chosen Pittsburgh as its first “AI Tech Community.”
It will establish “joint technology centers” with Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. CMU’s center will focus on robotics while Pitt’s is centered on health sciences, including applications of AI in clinical medicine and biomanufacturing.
As part of Nvidia’s first “AI Tech Community,” the schools will get access to Nvidia’s latest AI software and frameworks including a tool called Isaac Lab for robot learning, the company announced Tuesday at its AI Summit in Washington. Tech support from Nvidia will help researchers work faster, scale and build resiliency in their AI applications, the company said.
To build out the “community piece,” Nvidia is planning to engage with startups, software development companies and service providers.
Two startups with ties to CMU, Lovelace AI and Skild AI, are both part of that working group.
“This is a really good development for Pittsburgh,” Lovelace founder and chief executive Andrew Moore told the Post-Gazette Tuesday. “It’s what helps turn Pittsburgh into a full stack city,” from advanced solutions down to the hardware that helps achieve it.
“AI engineering is everything from the silicon to the product management and everything in between,” said Mr. Moore, whose company focuses on national security. “Nvidia’s involvement in the city has really emphasized that fact. Honestly, Pittsburgh is the only place I know where I’ve got friends I can go for a beer with who can talk silicon and can talk product marketing strategy.”
Lovelace currently uses the Nvidia system as a cheaper alternative to cloud computing, said Mr. Moore, who called the system “absolutely essential.”
Skild AI is already using Nvidia Isaac Lab to build a “Skild Brain” that could theoretically be placed into a variety of robots trained on a variety of tasks.
To build out more partnerships, Nvidia plans to work with the Pittsburgh Robotics Network nonprofit and accelerators like AlphaLab and the Robotics Factory at Innovation Works.
“The era of physical AI is here,” Amit Goel, head of robotics ecosystems at Nvidia, said in a statement. “Working with the Pittsburgh Robotics Network, the University of Pittsburgh, and Carnegie Mellon University will jump-start meaningful private-public collaborations to further accelerate national generative AI and robotics expertise and innovation.”
Financial details of the partnership were not disclosed, but Nvidia officials are expected to reveal more details at Monday’s AI Horizons summit in Bakery Square.
Anthony Robbins, vice president of Nvidia Federal, and Shane Shaneman, senior AI strategist for Nvidia Federal and a former CMU professor, are both on the lineup, alongside university leaders and Gov. Josh Shapiro.
Research leaders from both schools praised the announcement.
The partnership has “tremendous potential to power Pittsburgh’s already vibrant innovation ecosystem,” Theresa Mayer, vice president for research at CMU, said in a statement.
Rob A. Rutenbar, senior vice chancellor for research at Pitt, said the school plans to leverage the collaboration to achieve “improved health and education outcomes for everybody.”
Nvidia has a near total monopoly of the chip market, which many Pittsburgh technologists say is due to the pairing of chip hardware with accessible software.
“Any company in Pittsburgh that is using big data, AI, or training AI models, is going to be relying on Nvidia chips,” Marc Swinnen, director of product marketing at the global software company Ansys, previously told the Post-Gazette.
Agility Robotics, which designs and tests humanoid robots in Lawrenceville, had its signature Digit bot on stage with Nvidia’s chief executive earlier this year.
And Nvidia has long played a role in training Pittsburgh talent. The company has a fellowship program with CMU and supported Downtown-based Preamble AI with development expertise. It was also part of a recent investment round in Abridge, which uses AI to help doctors process notes.
Nvidia doesn’t yet have an office in Pittsburgh, although several of its employees work here remotely. The chipmaker could also be involved in future efforts to build out data centers for the region, as Microsoft and Amazon look to build in other parts of the state.
In August, the National Science Foundation awarded $4.9 million to the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, which is overseen by Pitt and CMU, to upgrade its system to the latest Nvidia platform.
First Published: October 8, 2024, 4:55 p.m.
Updated: October 9, 2024, 5:35 p.m.
