Meet the Omnivore: Cloud Architect Takes Infrastructure Visualization to New Heights With NVIDIA Omniverse

Meet the Omnivore: Cloud Architect Takes Infrastructure Visualization to New Heights With NVIDIA Omniverse

Editor’s note: This post is a part of our Meet the Omnivore series, which features individual creators and developers who use NVIDIA Omniverse to accelerate their 3D workflows and create virtual worlds.

As a Microsoft Certified Azure cloud specialist and DevOps automation engineer, Gavin Stevens is deeply in tune with cloud architect workflows.

He noticed an opportunity to improve the abilities of cloud architects to visualize their infrastructure — the combination of hardware and software necessary for cloud computing — by creating a 3D layout of it.

So Stevens set out to enable this by building an extension for NVIDIA Omniverse — a platform for connecting and building custom 3D pipelines and metaverse applications.

Dubbed Meta Cloud Explorer, the open-source extension generates digital 3D models of engineers’ cloud infrastructure components at scale, based on contextual metadata from their Azure cloud portals.

The visualization can then be organized by group, location, subscription and resource type. It also displays infrastructure layouts and costs on various planes. This can help cloud architects gain insights to optimize resources, reduce costs and improve customer experiences.

“There’s no shortage of ‘infrastructure diagram generation’ tools that can produce 2D representations of your cloud infrastructure,” Stevens said. “But most of these tools present a tightly focused exploration context, where it’s difficult to see your infrastructure at scale.”

Meta Cloud Explorer, instead, displays 3D representations that can be rearranged at scale. It’s one of the winning submissions for the inaugural #ExtendOmniverse contest, where developers were invited to create their own Omniverse extension for a chance to win an NVIDIA RTX GPU.

Omniverse extensions are core building blocks that let anyone create and extend functions of Omniverse apps using the popular Python and C++ programming languages.

Building Custom Workflow Tools

Stevens, who’s based in Scottsdale, Arizona, learned how to build the Omniverse extension in just a few months by attending community livestreams, learning Python and prototyping user interfaces based on sample resources.

He first transformed Microsoft Azure’s open-source 2D icons — representing storage accounts, web apps, databases and more — into 3D assets using Blender software. He easily brought these into Omniverse with Universal Scene Description (USD), an open-source, extensible file framework that serves as the common language for building virtual worlds and the metaverse.

Stevens then composed a 3D layout, arranging and visualizing the infrastructure services based on data such as location, type and cost by implementing a custom packing and layout algorithm. He also created a user interface directly in the scene to display details such as a cluster’s total cost or a service’s status.

“Omniverse takes care of the rendering and helps developers work at a higher level to easily visualize things in a 3D space,” Stevens said. “And USD makes it seamless to reference and position 3D objects within scenes.”

Dive deeper into Stevens’ workflow by watching this video:

Stevens is now planning to expand Meta Cloud Explorer’s capabilities to build an advanced software-as-a-service that enables users to create infrastructure from template libraries, learn about new architecture techniques and simulate design changes.

Being able to manipulate cloud infrastructure layouts in 3D, or even in virtual reality, would open up new possibilities for developers and cloud engineers to realize a customer’s vision, Stevens said.

“I’m not sure how you could even do this without Omniverse,” he added. “Omniverse Kit provides a dynamic, easy-to-use platform for building metaverse applications. And the ability to connect external application programming interfaces and data sources opens up flexibility when using Omniverse.”

Developers like Stevens can enhance their workflows with the recent Omniverse beta release, which includes major updates to core reference applications and tools for developers, creators and novices looking to build metaverse applications.

Join In on the Creation

Creators and developers across the world can download NVIDIA Omniverse for free, and enterprise teams can use the platform for their 3D projects.

Discover how to build an Omniverse extension in less than 10 minutes.

To find out how to accelerate cloud workflows, join NVIDIA at AWS re:Invent, running through Friday, Dec. 2.

For a deeper dive into developing on Omniverse, watch the on-demand NVIDIA GTC session, “How to Build Extensions and Apps for Virtual Worlds With NVIDIA Omniverse.”

Find additional documentation and tutorials in the Omniverse Resource Center, which details how developers can build custom USD-based applications and extensions for the platform.

To discover more free tools, training and a community for developers, join the NVIDIA Developer Program.

Follow NVIDIA Omniverse on Instagram, Medium, Twitter and YouTube for additional resources and inspiration. Check out the Omniverse forums, and join our Discord server and Twitch channel to chat with the community.

The post Meet the Omnivore: Cloud Architect Takes Infrastructure Visualization to New Heights With NVIDIA Omniverse appeared first on NVIDIA Blog.

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Cheers to AI: Monarch Tractor Launches First Commercially Available Electric, ‘Driver Optional’ Smart Tractor

Cheers to AI: Monarch Tractor Launches First Commercially Available Electric, ‘Driver Optional’ Smart Tractor

Livermore, Calif., renowned for research and vineyards, is plowing in a new distinction: the birthplace of the first commercially available smart tractor.

Local startup Monarch Tractor has announced the first of six Founder Series MK-V tractors are rolling off the production line at its headquarters. Constellation Brands, a leading wine and spirits producer and beer importer, will be the first customer given keys  at a launch event today.

The debut caps a two-year development sprint since Monarch, founded in 2018, hatched plans to deliver its smart tractor, complete with the energy-efficient NVIDIA Jetson edge AI platform. The tractor combines electrification, automation, and data analysis to help farmers reduce their carbon footprint, improve field safety, streamline farming operations, and increase their bottom lines.

The MK-V tractor cuts energy costs and diesel emissions, while also helping reduce harmful herbicides, which are expensive and deplete the soil.

“With precision ag, autonomy and AI, data will decrease the volume of chemicals used, which is good for the soil, good for the farmer from a profitability standpoint, and good for the consumer,” said Praveen Penmetsa, CEO of Monarch Tractor.

The delivery of MK-V tractors to Constellation Brands will be followed with additional tractor shipments to family farms and large corporate customers, according to the company.

Monarch is a member of the NVIDIA Inception program, which provides startups with technology support and AI platforms guidance.

Leading Farming AI Wave of Clean Tractors

Monarch Tractor founders include veterans of Silicon Valley’s EV scene who worked together at startup Zoox, now Amazon owned. Carlo Mondavi, from the Napa Valley Mondavi winery family, is a sustainability-focused vintner and chief farming officer.  Mark Schwager, former Tesla Gigafactory chief, is president; Zachary Omohundro, a robotics Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon, is CTO; Penmetsa is an autonomy and mobility engineer.

“The marriage of NVIDIA accelerated computing with Jetson edge AI on our Monarch MK-V has helped our customers reduce the use of unneeded herbicides with our cutting-edge, zero-emission tractor – this revolutionary technology is helping our planet’s soil, waterways and biodiversity,” said Carlo Mondavi.

Penmetsa likens the revolutionary new tractor to paradigm shifts in PCs and smartphones, enablers of world-changing applications. Monarch’s role, he said, is as the hub to enable smart implements — precision sprayers, harvesters and more — for computer vision applications to help automate farming.

In 2021, Monarch launched pilot test models for commercial use at Wente Vineyards, also based in Livermore. The trial at Wente compared its energy usage to that of a diesel tractor, noting Monarch saved more than $2,600 in annual expenses.

Monarch has raised more than $110 million in funding. Strategic investors include Japanese auto parts maker Musashi Seimitsu Industry Co; CNH Industrial, an agricultural equipment maker; and VST Tillers Tractors, an India-based equipment maker and dealer of tractors and implements.

It recently signed a contract manufacturing agreement with Hon Hai Technology Group Foxconn to build the MK-V and its battery packs at the Mahoning Valley, Ohio, plant.

As a wave of AI sweeps farming, developers are working to support more sustainable farming practices.

The NVIDIA Jetson platform provides energy-efficient computing to the MK-V, which offers advances in battery performance.

What a Jetson-Supported Monarch Founder Series MK-V Can Do

Tapping into six NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX SOMs (system on modules), Monarch’s Founder Series MK-V tractors are essentially roving robots packing supercomputing.

Monarch has harnessed Jetson to deliver tractors that can safely traverse rows within agriculture fields using only cameras. “This is important in certain agriculture environments because there may be no GPS signal,” said Penmetsa. “It’s also crucial for safety as the Monarch is intended for totally driverless operation.”

The Founder Series MK-V runs two 3D cameras and six standard cameras. With the six Jetson edge AI modules on board, it can run models for multiple farming tasks when paired with different implements.

Supporting more sustainable farming practices, computer vision applications are available to fine-tune with transfer learning for the Monarch platform to develop precision spraying and other options.

Delivering Farm-Apps-as-a-Service 

Monarch offers a core of main applications to assist farms with AI, available in a software-as-a-service model on its platform.

The Founder Series MK-V has some basic functions on its platform as well, such as sending alerts when on a low charge or there’s an unidentified object obstructing a path. It will also shut down from spraying if its camera-based vision platform identifies a human.

The tractor collects and analyzes crop data daily and can process data from current and next-generation implements equipped with sensors and imaging. This data can be used for real-time implement adjustments, long-term yield estimates, current growth stages and other plant and crop health metrics.

Wider availability of the tractor begins a new chapter in improved farming practices.

“The marriage of NVIDIA accelerated computing with Jetson edge AI on our Monarch MK-V has helped our customers reduce the use of unneeded herbicides with our cutting-edge, zero-emission tractor – this revolutionary technology is helping our planet’s soil, waterways and biodiversity,” said Mondavi.

Learn more about NVIDIA Isaac platform for robotics and apply to join NVIDIA Inception.

The post Cheers to AI: Monarch Tractor Launches First Commercially Available Electric, ‘Driver Optional’ Smart Tractor appeared first on NVIDIA Blog.

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Protecting Consumers and Promoting Innovation – AI Regulation and Building Trust in Responsible AI

Protecting Consumers and Promoting Innovation – AI Regulation and Building Trust in Responsible AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most transformational technologies of our generation and provides huge opportunities to be a force for good and drive economic growth. It can help scientists cure terminal diseases, engineers build inconceivable structures, and farmers yield more crops. AI allows us to make sense of our world as never before—and build products and services to address some of our most challenging problems, like climate change and responding to humanitarian disasters. AI is also helping industries innovate and overcome more commonplace challenges. Manufacturers are deploying AI to avoid equipment downtime through predictive maintenance and streamlining their logistics and distribution channels through supply chain optimization. Airlines are taking advantage of AI technologies to enhance the customer booking experience, assist with crew scheduling, and transporting passengers with greater fuel efficiency by simulating routes based on distance, aircraft weight, and weather.

While the benefits of AI are already plain to see and improving our lives each day, unlocking AI’s full potential will require building greater confidence among consumers. That means earning public trust that AI will be used responsibly and in a manner that is consistent with the rule of law, human rights, and the values of equity, privacy, and fairness.

Understanding the important need for public trust, we work closely with policymakers across the country and around the world as they assess whether existing consumer protections remain fit-for-purpose in an AI era. An important baseline for any regulation must be to differentiate between high-risk AI applications and those that pose low-to-no risk. The great majority of AI applications fall in the latter category, and their widespread adoption provides opportunities for immense productivity gains and, ultimately, improvements in human well-being. If we are to inspire public confidence in the overwhelmingly good, businesses must demonstrate they can confidently mitigate the potential risks of high-risk AI. The public should be confident that these sorts of high-risk systems are safe, fair, appropriately transparent, privacy protective, and subject to appropriate oversight.

At AWS, we recognize that we are well positioned to deliver on this vision and are proud to support our customers as they invent, build, and deploy AI systems to solve real-world problems. As AWS offers the broadest and deepest set of AI services and the supporting cloud infrastructure, we are committed to developing fair and accurate AI services and providing customers with the tools and guidance needed to build applications responsibly. We recognize that responsible AI is the shared responsibility of all organizations that develop and deploy AI systems.

We are committed to providing tools and resources to aide customers using our AI and machine learning (ML) services. Earlier this year, we launched our Responsible Use of Machine Learning guide, providing considerations and recommendations for responsibly using ML across all phases of the ML lifecycle. In addition, at our 2020 AWS re:Invent conference, we rolled out Amazon SageMaker Clarify, a service that provides developers with greater insights into their data and models, helping them understand why an ML model made a specific prediction and also whether the predictions were impacted by bias. Additional resources, access to AI/ML experts, and education and training can also be found on our Responsible use of artificial intelligence and machine learning page.

We continue to expand efforts to provide guidance and support to customers and the broader community in the responsible use space. This week at our re:Invent 2022 conference, we announced the launch of AWS AI Service Cards, a new transparency resource to help customers better understand our AWS AI services. The new AI Service Cards deliver a form of responsible AI documentation that provide customers with a single place to find information.

Each AI Service Card covers four key topics to help you better understand the service or service features, including intended use cases and limitations, responsible AI design considerations, and guidance on deployment and performance optimization. The content of the AI Service Cards addresses a broad audience of customers, technologists, researchers, and other stakeholders who seek to better understand key considerations in the responsible design and use of an AI service.

Conversations among policymakers regarding AI regulations continue as the technologies become more established. AWS is focused on not only offering the best-in-class tools and services to provide for the responsible development and deployment of AI services, but also continuing our engagement with lawmakers to promote strong consumer protections while encouraging the fast pace of innovation.

About the Author

Nicole Foster is Director of AWS Global AI/ML and Canada Public Policy at Amazon, where she leads the direction and strategy of artificial intelligence public policy for Amazon Web Services (AWS) around the world as well as the company’s public policy efforts in support of the AWS business in Canada. In this role, she focuses on issues related to emerging technology, digital modernization, cloud computing, cyber security, data protection and privacy, government procurement, economic development, skilled immigration, workforce development, and renewable energy policy.

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GFN Thursday Dashes Into December With 22 New Games, Including ‘Marvel Midnight Suns’ Streaming Soon

GFN Thursday Dashes Into December With 22 New Games, Including ‘Marvel Midnight Suns’ Streaming Soon

It’s a new month, which means GeForce NOW’s got the list of 22 new games arriving in December.

Rise up for Marvel’s Midnight Suns, from publisher 2K Games, streaming on GeForce NOW later this month.

Then get ready to move out, members. Battlefield 2042 is the latest game from the Electronic Arts catalog streaming on GeForce NOW. It arrives just in time for the free access weekend, running Dec. 1-4, and comes with a members-only reward.

These games lead the charge, among the six additions streaming this week.

Time to Assemble 

From the creators of XCOM, and published by 2K Games, Marvel’s Midnight Suns is a tactical role-playing game set in the darker, supernatural side of the Marvel Universe. It launches on Steam on Friday, Dec. 2, with GeForce NOW members getting into the action later this month.

Marvels Midnight Suns
A new Sun must rise.

Play as “The Hunter,” a legendary demon slayer with a mysterious past and the first-ever customizable superhero in the Marvel Universe. Put together a team of legendary Marvel heroes, including Scarlet Witch, Spiderman, Wolverine, Blade and Captain America.

These heroes must fight together to stop the Mother of Demons from completing an ancient prophecy. In revolutionary card-based tactical battles, players can use ability cards on enemies, themselves or the environment.

Stay tuned for updates on the game’s release on GeForce NOW.

Step Foot Onto the Battlefield

Prepare to charge into Battlefield 2042, the first-person shooter that marks the return to the iconic all-out warfare of the widely popular franchise from Electronic Arts. Available today along with the latest update, “Season 3: Escalation,” the game marks the 19th title from EA to join GeForce NOW.

Adapt and overcome in a near-future world transformed by disorder. Choose your role on the battlefield with class specialists and form a squad to bring a cutting-edge arsenal into dynamically changing battlegrounds of unprecedented scale and epic destruction.

With RTX ON, EA and DICE introduced ray-traced ambient occlusion in Battlefield 2042. This accurately adds shadows where game elements occlude light, whether between a soldier and a wall, a tank and the tarmac, or foliage and the ground. Members can use NVIDIA DLSS to get the definitive PC experience, with maxed-out graphics, high frame rates and uncompromised image quality.

The game comes with a special reward for GeForce NOW members. To opt in and receive rewards, log in to your NVIDIA account and select “GEFORCE NOW” from the header, then scroll down to “REWARDS” and click the “UPDATE REWARDS SETTINGS” button. Check the box in the dialogue window that shows up to start receiving special offers and in-game goodies.

Experience the action across compatible devices and take gaming to the max with all the perks of an RTX 3080 membership, like 4K resolution, RTX ON and maximized gaming sessions.

The More the Merrier

The Knight Witch on GeForce NOW
Cast devastating card-based spells, forge close bonds and make moral choices — all in a quest to save your home.

Members can look for the following six games available to play this week:

  • The Knight Witch (New release on Steam, Nov. 29)
  • Warhammer 40,000: Darktide (New Release on Steam, Nov. 30)
  • Fort Triumph (Free on Epic Games Store, Dec. 1-8)
  • Battlefield 2042 (Steam and Origin)
  • Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop (Steam)
  • Stormworks: Build and Rescue (Steam)

Then time to unwrap the rest of the list of 22 games coming this month: 

  • Marvel’s Midnight Suns (New release on Steam, coming soon)
  • Art of the Rail (New release on Steam, Dec. 4)
  • Swordship (New release on Steam, Dec. 5)
  • Knights of Honor II: Sovereign (New release on Steam, Dec. 6)
  • Chained Echoes (New release on Steam, Dec. 7)
  • IXION (New release on Steam, Dec. 7)
  • Togges (New release on Steam, Dec. 7)
  • SAMURAI MAIDEN (New release on Steam, Dec. 8)
  • Wavetale (New release on Steam, Dec. 12)
  • Master of Magic (New release on Steam, Dec. 13)
  • BRAWLHALLA (Ubisoft Connect)
  • Carrier Command 2  (Steam)
  • Cosmoteer: Starship Architect & Commander (Steam)
  • Dakar Desert Rally (Epic Game Store)
  • Dinkum (Steam)
  • Floodland (Steam)
  • Project Hospital (Steam)

Nothing Left Behind From November

On top of the 26 games announced in November, members can play the extra 10 games that were added to GeForce NOW last month:

And good things come in small packages — for the perfect stocking stuffer or last-minute gift, look no further than GeForce NOW. Physical or digital gift cards are always available, and tomorrow is the last day to get in on the “Green Thursday Black Friday” deal.

Before you start off a super weekend of gaming, there’s only one choice left to make. Let us know your pick on Twitter or in the comments below.

The post GFN Thursday Dashes Into December With 22 New Games, Including ‘Marvel Midnight Suns’ Streaming Soon appeared first on NVIDIA Blog.

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Mastering Stratego, the classic game of imperfect information

Mastering Stratego, the classic game of imperfect information

Game-playing artificial intelligence (AI) systems have advanced to a new frontier. Stratego, the classic board game that’s more complex than chess and Go, and craftier than poker, has now been mastered. Published in Science, we present DeepNash, an AI agent that learned the game from scratch to a human expert level by playing against itself. Read More