Humanoid robots take over CES in Las Vegas as tech industry touts future of AI

AMD CEO Lisa Su on Monday revealed a new humanoid robot from Italy's Generative Bionics, a company that it's backing financially. The robot, Gene.01, is scheduled be deployed later this year in industrial environments like shipyards.

LG's CLOiD robot made its debut this week, folding towels and loading the washing machine.

Kif Leswing / CNBC

Generative Robotics is using AMD's cloud-based graphics processing units to train and fine-tune its models.

"This allows us to customize the next generation of the models on their GPUs," said Generative Robotics CEO Daniele Pucci. "That is the brain." Some of the first humanoid robots on the market could be more about fun and flash than productivity. China's Unitree Robotics displayed its $70,000 G1 robot at CES. Large crowds of onlookers were treated to a performance of boxing and dancing on the show floor.

The largest tech companies in the world are betting that the market is rapidly evolving. Nvidia's Huang said this week that robots are having their "ChatGPT moment."

Modar Alaoui, general partner at ALM Ventures, sees robots rapidly moving from novelty to reality.

"The next generation is just going to grow up with these machines whether we accept it or not," he said.

— CNBC's Katie Tarasov contributed to this story. Nvidia

Nvidia, which last year became the world's most valuable company, announced a new version of its vision language models called Gr00t for humanoid robots that can turn sensor inputs into robot body control, as well as a version of its Cosmos model for robot reasoning and planning.

Huang said he expects to see robots with some human-level capabilities this year.

"I know how fast the technology is moving," he said. His company highlighted partnerships with the likes of Boston Dynamics, Caterpillar and LG.