Nvidia has unveiled a new $249 version of its Jetson computer designed for running artificial applications locally. The compact Orin Nano is touted to be twice as fast and efficient as its predecessor, all at half the price. According to Nvidia, it can handle approximately 70% more computational tasks.
The Orin Nano is perfect for hobbyists keen on training their own AI applications or for developers of robots and industrial tools looking to run advanced applications without relying on the cloud.
In a charming YouTube video introducing the product, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang showcases the small computer by pulling it out of his oven in his kitchen. Huang mentions that the computer can process nearly “seventy trillion” operations per second while consuming just 25 watts of power.
“A long time ago, we created a brand new type of processor, it was a robotics processor,” Huang explains in the video. “Nobody understood what we were building at the time, and we imagined that someday these deep learning models would evolve and we would have robots for everything.” The Jetson computers were initially designed to power robots but can now also handle large language models like Meta’s Llama.
World (formerly Worldcoin), a startup led by Sam Altman, uses a Jetpack module inside its Orb scanning device to authenticate human identity with iris scans. In a blog post from October, World highlighted the advanced NVIDIA Jetson module in the latest Orb version, providing nearly 5x the AI performance compared to the previous version for faster human verifications.
Essentially, the Orin Nano serves as a portable brain that can be connected to other hardware to enhance its AI capabilities. While it may not replace Nvidia’s high-end GPUs used for training and inferring from large-scale AI models, it offers a cost-effective solution for running lightweight AI applications without relying on cloud services.
As AI becomes more affordable and accessible, startups will need to focus on developing real intellectual property rather than simply integrating AI models into devices. The Orin Nano represents a step towards empowering innovation in AI applications without breaking the bank.