Technology company Nvidia has announced a collaboration with electronics manufacturer Hon Hai Technology Group (Foxconn), to accelerate the “AI industrial revolution”.
Foxconn will integrate Nvidia technology to develop a new class of data centers for applications including: digitalization of manufacturing and inspection workflows, development of AI-powered electric vehicle and robotics platforms, and a growing number of language-based generative AI services.
Announced at Hon Hai Tech Day, by Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang and Foxconn chairman and CEO Young Liu, the collaboration starts with the creation of AI an Nvidia GPU computing infrastructure specially built for processing, refining and transforming vast amounts of data into valuable AI models and tokens.
Foxconn is also developing its smart solution platforms based on Nvidia technologies: Foxconn Smart EV will be built on Nvidia Drive Hyperion 9, a next-generation platform for autonomous automotive fleets, powered by Nvidia Drive Thor, its future automotive systems-on-a-chip; Foxconn Smart Manufacturing robotic systems will be built on the Nvidia Isaac autonomous mobile robot platform; and Foxconn Smart City will incorporate the Nvidia Metropolis intelligent video analytics platform.
“A new type of manufacturing has emerged — the production of intelligence. And the data centers that produce it are AI factories,” said Huang. “Foxconn, the world’s largest manufacturer, has the expertise and scale to build AI factories globally. We are delighted to expand our decade-long partnership with Foxconn to accelerate the AI industrial revolution.”
Working closely with Nvidia, Foxconn is expected to build a large number of systems based on Nvidia CPUs and GPUs.
Among the key Nvidia technologies Foxconn is using to create these custom designs are Nvidia HGX reference designs featuring eight HGX H100 Tensor Core GPUs per system, Nvidia GH200 Superchips, Nvidia OVX reference designs and Nvidia networking.
With these systems, Foxconn customers can leverage Nvidia accelerated computing to deliver generative AI services as well as use simulation to speed up the training of autonomous machines, including industrial robots and self-driving cars.
An AI factory with these Nvidia platforms can give Foxconn the ability to accomplish AI training and inference, enhance factory workflows and run simulations in the virtual world before deployment in the physical world. Simulating the entire robotics and automation pipeline from end to end provides Foxconn with a path to operational efficiency gains, saving time and costs.
Foxconn will also deliver a range of Nvidia Drive solutions to global auto makers, serving as a Tier 1 manufacturer of Nvidia Drive Orin-based electronic control units (ECUs) today and scaling to Nvidia Drive Thor-based ECUs in the future.