If you're an overnight subway rider in New York City, you might soon spot a 5-foot-3 blue and white robot on wheels that looks like a cross between Star Wars' R2D2 and one of the Coneheads from the popular Saturday Night Live skit.
That robot, which was unveiled by New York City Mayor Eric Adams last Friday during a news conference, is the Big Apple's latest addition to its police force.
Here's what investors should know.
NYC launches Knightscope security robot service
New York City is leasing the artificial intelligence (AI)-powered autonomous K5 robot, made by Knightscope, for two months as part of a pilot program. The pilot is part of Adams' goal of bringing more technology to the New York Police Department to help human officers deter and fight crime. If this project goes well, the Adams administration will presumably be keen on permanently adding K5 robots to the city's arsenal of crime-fighting tools.
The K5 robot's first two weeks of its new NYC assignment will be spent on training, configuration, and setup. It will then patrol the Times Square subway station in Manhattan between midnight and 6 a.m., but will not go onto subway platforms. During the pilot, the robot will be accompanied by a human officer.
The K5 is able to monitor wide areas thanks to its 360-degree camera. While the robot will capture video footage, it won't record audio or use facial recognition, Adams said.
Folks in the Times Square subway will be able to contact the NYPD around the clock by pushing a button on the robot, Adams added.
Nvidia's AI tech is powering the K5
The story about the City of New York and the NYPD launching the Knightscope K5 security robot service got much press coverage on Friday and into the weekend. However, none of the articles that I perused told me the top thing that I, as a writer for The Motley Fool, wanted to know: Which company's AI tech is the "brains" behind the K5 robot?
So, searching I went to find the answer. And as I highly suspected, the answer -- which came in the form of a March 2021 Knightscope press release -- is tech giant Nvidia (NVDA 0.03%).
More specifically, Nvidia's AI supercomputer Jetson -- yes, the name is a playful nod to the 1960s sci-fi cartoon The Jetsons -- powers Knightscope's K5 autonomous security robot and perhaps some of the company's other models.
Nvidia touts that Jetson is the world's leading platform for autonomous machines and other embedded AI applications. Its diverse applications range from security robots to autonomous tractors to smart cities to drones for delivery, agricultural monitoring, search and rescue, and other use cases.
Jetson has advanced vision capabilities and a small form factor -- it's a supercomputer on a module -- and performs real-time, continuous AI inferencing "at the edge," which means right at the spot the data is collected. Inferencing is the second step in the AI process, following training, and involves machines using their training to draw conclusions from new data.
A gazillion use cases
Nvidia's Jetson platform doesn't garner nearly the press that its Drive platform for autonomous vehicles or its AI products for data centers do, but like many of the company's product lines, it has enormous growth potential, thanks to the recent huge advances in AI and related technologies.
Security robots are just one of the nearly endless and constantly expanding use cases for Nvidia's AI tech, which dominates AI training and is a leader in AI inferencing. The company's leadership position in arguably the fastest-growing tech today is the top reason Nvidia remains one of the best growth stocks for long-term investors.
