‘Physical AI’ Is Coming for Your Car

Physical AI Sounds Like a contradiction in words. A computer, but a body?

But to marketing architects, it is the latest term of art, a buzzword that points us citizens toward a bright and promising technological future.

Here on Earth, this term is perhaps most useful for understanding how automotive companies are thinking of themselves right now: as technology leaders. That’s an easy shortcut to understanding how attractive the automotive industry is to companies making chips — what could be a $123 billion opportunity by 2032, up nearly 85 percent from 2023. The huge CES consumer tech showcase in Las Vegas always has its share of goofy robot demos, but this year’s presentations showed how the world of robots, cars and chipsets is rapidly expanding.

First, to define (marketing) terms: “Physical AI” is the way tech developers ultimately expect autonomous systems to interact with the real world, using camera and sensor data to actually sense and perceive what’s going on around them, and perform complex tasks to respond. Physical AI is the kind of humanoid robot that does a day’s work on a Hyundai factory floor, as Google DeepMind, Boston Dynamics, and the Korean automaker have announced they will do in the coming months. It’s a car that drives itself in complex traffic situations, or does something arguably more complex: seamlessly handing over control between a human driver and a software-driven driver. Physical AI lets autonomous systems like cameras, robots, and self-driving cars perceive, understand, reason about, and execute or organize complex tasks in the real world.

It’s no coincidence that the companies making the most noise about physical AI are chipmakers, including Nvidia and ARM. The former announced a whole new open source line of AI models targeting autonomous systems; The latter introduced the Physical AI division at CES. They stand to make a big difference by breaking away from the trend.

For example, witness the parade of autonomy-related announcements at CES, which will require some powerful computing resources onboard.

Ford says it will sell a system by 2028 that will allow drivers to steer their vehicles without looking at the road in front of them. The Afila, a battery-powered collaboration between Sony and Honda, will, at some point, date TBD, run on its own in most situations. Nvidia will supply chips for Chinese automaker Geely’s new “intelligent driving system,” which the company will eventually transform into “high-level autonomous driving.” Nvidia is also involved in Mercedes-Benz’s new hands-off driving system launching in the US this year. Ultimately, the company says the system should be able to move between home and work without help. “This is already a big business for us,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said of self-driving cars during his CES presentation.

“The central brain of the vehicle will now be hundreds of times larger than the quantum leap – and that’s [chipmakers] “They see a big future in these vehicles.”

No wonder their marketers found a sexy new way to describe it.