I’m still working through material from Nvidia’s GTC conference last month, and two announcements that didn’t get much coverage jumped out at me.
One was how Nvidia’s AI achieved a world record in route optimization. The second was building the third generation OVX computing system that is the foundation of the Industrial Metaverse.
Taken together, they’ll help automate everything around us — including our Amazon deliveries — and make drone deliveries more likely.
Let’s talk about this Nvidia-powered future, and we’ll end with our Product of the Week, Medibus, a joint project between Cisco and Germany to provide healthcare to people who have poor access to healthcare services. Live in accessible rural areas.
Route optimization – why it matters
According to Pitney Bowes, last-mile delivery is where a large portion of the cost of shipping a product is incurred—about 40%. But that’s a big problem for drone delivery because drones have a finite range, and we’re a long way from having a critical mass of them in service.
Especially as we start to shift from humans to AI doing last-mile delivery, the ability to better manage routes – considering things like prevailing winds, weather events, potential bird strikes and other obstacles It becomes critical to ensure that you receive your package on time. and relatively unaffected. ,
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If you add to this the range limitations of both land- and air-based drones, the problem becomes even more dire as solving it reduces lost drones and late packages. Nvidia has created massive amounts of road data as it has become a leader in autonomous driving technology, and it is using this knowledge to its advantage with its route optimization solutions.
A technology Nvidia developed called cuOpt can analyze billions of movements per second and account for a range of environmental issues to help ensure on-time delivery of a package, whether it’s a toy for your child or Pizza for your dinner.
Using Nvidia’s supercomputers such as the A100 Sensor Core GPU, CUopt can analyze massive amounts of data to generate the most efficient routes in real time – which is why it won the world record.
OVX Computing System Makes the Industrial Metaverse Real
The other announcement at GTC that didn’t get much coverage was the release of the third-generation Massive OVX platform that will host Nvidia’s Metaverse product, Omniverse.
Unlike Facebook’s largely failed consumer effort, the industrial metaverse is much more complex and is already in production at large plant sites as part of design and management. Every piece of equipment has a fully mechanized digital twin, and even the humans on the plant floor can have full digital twins to ensure the safety of humans and improve their efficiency.
Corrected, the Machinery digital twins are so complete that even their internals are digitally digitized through sensors synchronized with their digital twins in the Metaverse.
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Using a variety of cutting-edge technologies, including BlueField 3 DPUs, Nvidia L40 GPUs, ConnectX-7 smart NICs, and its Spectrum Ethernet platform, Nvidia has created the Metaverse computer for those who want an on-premises Metaverse solution.
The effort is also somewhat tied to Nvidia’s autonomous driving efforts as it potentially connects and digitizes robots and trains that deliver to sites where the technology is already implemented. Partnering with Dell Technologies, Nvidia plans to make this technology available later this year.
wrapping up
Nvidia announced two under-the-cover technologies at its GTC conference this year. One focuses on getting the goods to you cheaply and efficiently, and it anticipates drone delivery. The second automates the construction of a large facility. Both the technologies work together to make the result viable and far more efficient.
Some of these technologies are already in use by Digitale Schien Deutschland and Pepsi Co. While fully automated metaverse-coupled factories and drone deliveries are not yet in full production, they are on their way. Nvidia is and will be shipping platforms that will make all this work.
medibus
One of the most lucrative initiatives from any company is Cisco’s Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) program, which is run by Guy Diedrich.
Cisco created the CDA program to help countries digitize. It came to the fore widely during the pandemic, when politicians, bureaucrats, teachers and students transitioned to work from home, enabling governments and schools to cooperate. Cisco’s CDA efforts were critical in helping children go to school, and politicians govern remotely.
CDA’s latest effort, Medibus, is just as fascinating. Working with the German government to address the lack of medical care in remote and often economically distressed locations, the two organizations acquired some buses and converted them into mobile health care clinics.
When war broke out in Ukraine, Cisco persuaded Germany to loan some of these buses to the refugee crisis on Ukraine’s borders to bring refugees the health care they needed.
While the service was initially created to help German citizens who live in remote areas where health care professionals are few (there is a severe shortage of rural medical clinics in Germany), it has also been used for disaster relief, corporate health care efforts. And lately it’s been helpful. , to help Ukrainian refugees.
Built on Cisco’s networking and communications technology, each bus carries three people: a driver, a nurse and a doctor linked to multiple remote resources that can be brought in to consult or assist with a procedure as needed.
The effort anticipates a future where these vehicles may be fully automated and use Nvidia route optimization and Metaverse solutions to ensure their on-time arrival. The next step is to make them autonomous and help overcome staffing limitations by fully automating them.
Not only does Medibus demonstrate the potential future for medical care in rural areas, disaster recovery, and other remote medical needs, such as vaccine shots, it could bring about a roaming autonomous, automated medical system that can take care of our health even when there are no doctors. Will ensure better care. short supply. As a result, Cisco Medibus is my product of the week.
