Breaking the Bottleneck | Issue 64

[11/11/2024] NVIDIA Product Releases, 2025 Deloitte Industry Outlooks, The Election's Impact, & Physical Intelligence

Nov 12, 2024

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News:

NVIDIA’s New Robotics Simulation and Learning Tools [NVIDIA]

NVIDIA unveiled a suite of new AI and simulation tools at the Conference for Robot Learning (CoRL). The lineup includes the general availability of the NVIDIA Isaac Lab robot learning framework; six new humanoid robot learning workflows under Project GR00T (Gen, Mimic, Dexterity, Control, Mobility, and Perception); and new world-model development tools for the NVIDIA Cosmos tokenizer and NVIDIA NeMo Curator for video processing. The NVIDIA Cosmos tokenizer provides efficient, high-quality video encoding and decoding. The NVIDIA NeMo Curator now includes a video processing pipeline, enabling robot developers to improve their world-model accuracy by processing large-scale text, image, and video data. Finally, at CoRL, NVIDIA also presented 23 research papers, including SkillGen, a system based on synthetic data generation for training robots with minimal human demonstrations, and HOVER, a robot foundation model for controlling humanoid robot locomotion and manipulation. Finally, Hugging Face and NVIDIA announced a collaboration to accelerate open-source robotics research with LeRobot, NVIDIA Isaac Lab, and NVIDIA Jetson for the developer community.

Will Trump’s Tariffs Spur US Manufacturing [WSJ]

Manufacturing executives are divided over President-elect Donald Trump's campaign promise to raise tariffs, a planned 60% duty on imports from China, and whether such measures would boost U.S. production. Some leaders in high-value and precision product sectors are optimistic. Nicole Wolter, CEO of HM Manufacturing in Illinois, expressed enthusiasm to her staff, saying, "Well, it looks like we're going to be rocking and rolling. Manufacturing might have life again." She anticipates that customers will return if they feel confident about Trump's economic policies, noting that some had shifted orders to lower-cost countries like India over the past 18 months. Conversely, other executives doubt that tariffs will revive domestic manufacturing. Companies are concerned about the higher costs of relocating supply chains back to the U.S., which could hurt profits. Recreational vehicle maker Polaris reported that tariffs on components from China for its all-terrain vehicles cost the company $100 million a year, prompting it to source some components from Mexico to avoid tariffs. Donald Allan, CEO of Stanley Black & Decker, indicated that while the company might raise prices and shift production out of China if additional tariffs are imposed, moving production to the U.S. is unlikely. Stanley closed a Texas factory last year where an attempt to manufacture wrenches domestically failed due to unreliable automated systems.

How Trump’s Election Might Derail the Clean Energy Transition [Canary Media]

The recent election of former President Donald Trump in 2024 poses significant challenges to the Biden administration's clean energy and climate policies. Trump intends to repeal the IRA, and his executive powers enable him to reverse key Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations that limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, vehicles, and the oil and gas industry. He is also likely to lift the Biden administration's pause on federal permitting of fossil gas export facilities and withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement. Repealing the IRA would be highly disruptive, undermining an estimated $500 billion in planned investments and jeopardizing the rapid growth of clean energy jobs, which are increasing at twice the pace of overall U.S. employment. A survey indicated that repeal could result in half of the clean energy companies losing business or revenue, about one-quarter losing projects or contracts, roughly one-fifth laying off workers, and about one in ten going out of business. An analysis by Energy Innovation warns that implementing Project 2025 could result in $320 billion in annual GDP losses, the loss of 1.7 million clean energy jobs, an additional $32 billion in household energy costs, and an increase of approximately 1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to maintaining current policies. However, there is bipartisan concern about repealing the IRA, especially among Republicans representing districts that have benefited from clean energy investments. Eighteen House Republicans cautioned against repealing energy tax credits, stating that it would "undermine private investments and stop development that is already ongoing." Additionally, industry leaders argue that clean energy advancements are crucial for U.S. competitiveness against China.

Honda’s Key Production Processes Behind New EVs [Assembly Magazine]

Honda has unveiled its new 0 Series, a pioneering approach to electric vehicle (EV) development centered around "thin, light, and wise.” To achieve these goals, Honda engineers focus on four core production technologies, including megacasting and friction stir welding (FSW). Megacasting involves molding large, single-piece cast parts, such as one-piece battery enclosures and reduces the number of parts in a battery case. FSW uses frictional heat generated between a rotating, rod-shaped tool applied to both join mega cast parts for the battery case enclosure and attach the water jacket cover for battery cooling. Honda's third new production technology is the Flex-Cell Production System, an innovative assembly approach where one person performs all tasks in a fixed location. Finally, the company implemented constant DC Chopping (CDC) Welding Technology to address difficulties in joining ultra-high tensile strength steel plates with thin, soft steel plates. It utilizes an inverter-controlled current with very short time control to efficiently join light and strong materials.

Siemens Altair Play, Strategic Move, or Catch-Up? [Engineering.com]

Siemens announced the acquisition of Altair Engineering to strengthen its AI-driven industrial software portfolio. Integrating Altair's powerful AI, simulation, and HPC tools into Siemens' PLM suite (Teamcenter and Simcenter) offers a potential transformation in digital twins and simulations across engineering and manufacturing. Altair's expertise in physics-based simulations, including mechanical and electromagnetic modeling, could enable Siemens to develop more sophisticated digital twins that represent physical products and predict behaviors and outcomes with high fidelity. Furthermore, Altair’s recent acquisition of Cambridge Semantics can provide a framework for Siemens to unify and contextualize vast amounts of data from disparate systems and products. This depends on how effectively Siemens can embed these capabilities as a core, transformative feature within its PLM platform. Without a clear path to seamlessly integrate AI across its offerings, Altair's capabilities risk being relegated to auxiliary add-on features, potentially limiting its business impact. HPC solutions typically require specialized infrastructure, substantial processing power, and technical expertise. Siemens will need to carefully consider how to bring HPC capabilities into mainstream use within its portfolio, including positioning within its maturing SaaS offering. The risk is that without a robust integration plan, Altair's HPC tools may remain isolated and less affordable, reducing the transformative potential of this acquisition. Siemens may find itself playing catch-up in an industry where speed and innovation are paramount.