Hon Hai Technology Group (Foxconn) is integrating NVIDIA technology to develop a new class of data centres that enable the digitalisation of manufacturing and inspection workflows, development of AI-powered electric vehicle and robotics platforms, and a growing number of language-based generative AI services.
The collaboration starts with the creation of AI factories — an NVIDIA GPU computing infrastructure specially built for processing, refining and transforming vast amounts of data into valuable AI models and tokens — based on the NVIDIA accelerated computing platform.
Foxconn is also developing its smart solution platforms based on NVIDIA technologies.
One is the Foxconn Smart EV that 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.
Also, Foxconn Smart Manufacturing robotic systems will be built on the NVIDIA Isaac autonomous mobile robot platform.
And third, Foxconn Smart City will incorporate the NVIDIA Metropolis intelligent video analytics platform.
NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang said that a new type of manufacturing has emerged — the production of intelligence.
“And the data centres that produce it are AI factories,” said Huang. “Foxconn, the world’s largest manufacturer, has the expertise and scale to build AI factories globally.”
Foxconn is expected to build a large number of systems based on NVIDIA CPUs, GPUs and networking for its global customer base, which is looking to create and operate their own AI factories, optimised with NVIDIA AI Enterprise software.
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.
Advances in edge AI and simulation are enabling deployment of autonomous mobile robots that can travel several miles a day and industrial robots for assembling components, applying coatings, packaging and performing quality inspections.
An AI factory with NVIDIA platforms is expected to 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 promises Foxconn operational efficiency gains and savings on time and costs.
As a contract manufacturer, Foxconn intends to offer highly automated and autonomous, AI-rich EVs featuring the upcoming NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion 9 platform. This will enable Foxconn and its automotive customers to realise a new era of functionally safe and secure software-defined cars.
