From robot cities to voice-powered cars, CES 2025 spotlights 'physical AI'

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From robot cities to voice-powered cars, CES 2025 spotlights 'physical AI'

Published: 09 Jan. 2025, 19:12 Updated: 09 Jan. 2025, 19:23

PARK EUN-JEE
[email protected]

CHO YONG-JUN
[email protected]

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Toyota Motor Chairman Akio Toyoda talks about the company's Woven City smart city at CES 2025 on Jan.6. [NEWS1]

The 2025 edition of CES heralded an era of “physical AI” wherein AI-powered systems actually carry out somewhat sophisticated tasks in a physical world, a step beyond the conceptual imagination.

Big Tech and automotive players — from Samsung and LG to BMW, Toyota and Sony — have turned their ideas and concepts into a more mature version of prototypes or production units at the world’s biggest trade show, which runs from Jan. 7 to Jan. 10.

Each product or project has differing elements, but the common ground is that their reveal has been manifested in the real world and runs closely with daily life.

Physical AI enabled by Cosmos
Whether it be autonomous vehicles or robots, training for AI system is critical to pulling out the best performance and making constant advancement of the products.

In a keynote speech, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang introduced Cosmos, the company's platform tailored to training autonomous vehicles and bots in a process centered on visualized graphics rather than texts. Nvidia said that the new platform is designed to generate images and videos of the physical world.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaks about the Cosmos World Foundation Models during a keynote speech at the 2025 CES on Jan. 6. [EPA/YONHAP]

“The ChatGPT moment for robotics is coming. Like large language models, world foundation models are fundamental to advancing robot and AV [autonomous vehicle] development, yet not all developers have the expertise and resources to train their own,” said Huang.

The CEO introduced a set of robotics companies planning to adopt the Cosmos model.

“We created Cosmos to democratize physical AI and put general robotics in reach of every developer.”

China’s Xpeng is among the first to use it in its development of humanoid robots while Uber also plans to deploy Cosmos, which is available under open license.

Personalized infotainment
For many drivers, the initial version of AI being integrated into cars was a let-down, as its function is limited to a handful of simple tasks.

As the technology matures, the scope of functions is set to expand, as evidenced by BMW’s announcement at CES.

BMW's Panoramic iDrive unveiled at CES 2025 [BMW KOREA]

Its newest infotainment system features a more powerful BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant, which utilizes a large language model to “enable dialogue in natural languages.”

“The use of this technology is focused initially on navigation, allowing the customer to give more extensive spoken commands using natural language. For example: 'Take me to a charging station that is close to a food store,'” the German carmaker said in a statement.

The new panoramic infotainment screen spans the entire dashboard — similar to what the German automaker first teased in its concept car in 2023. The major difference is that this time, it's slated for production within the year.

While the exact size and resolution of the new infotainment systems are not revealed, it is clear from the concept images that the top panoramic display — which replaces the gauge cluster, shows air conditioning status and more — is as wide as the windshield glass, and the central infotainment screen below it seems to be larger than the ones currently equipped to BMW vehicles.

The new design language and hardware were first teased in the company’s Vision Neue Klasse concept car in 2023. The production version, similar to the concept, ditches even more physical buttons in favor of larger screens.

It will also offer a 3-D head-up display as an optional extra.

Sony's Afeela 1 EV sedan [SONY]

Sony, meanwhile, finally brought its automotive dream to production, unveiling the price and preorder details of its Afeela 1, an electric sedan co-developed with Honda. The Origin trim will start at $89,900 while the top signature model will be priced at $102,900 — targeted to compete with luxury EV sedans like the Lucid Air, Tesla Model S and Genesis G80 Electrified.

The Afeela 1 will come with three free years of a subscription service that combines driver’s assistance software, entertainment selection in its infotainment system and a personal assistant.

The tech demo of Afeela 1 at the CES show floor also showed the car being summoned via voice command.

The vehicle features 18 cameras, 1 lidar sensor, 9 radar sensors and 12 ultrasonic sensors in and outside the vehicle, but will face steep competition due to its par-for-the-course 91 kilowatt-hour battery with around 300 miles of estimated range.

Delta, similarly, announced that it would add QLED entertainment displays with 4k resolution and HDR support to its commercial planes starting in 2026. The airline, which currently already offers free onboard Wi-Fi on most domestic U.S. routes, told The Verge that the high-quality screen will be available in “all cabins.”

Toyota Motor's Woven City in Shizuoka prefecture [TOYOTA MOTOR]

A city interwoven with AI
Another Japanese company is bringing every facet of AI into the scope of a village.

Toyota Motor revealed that its $10 billion smart city project completed its first phase of construction and will welcome the first 100 residents to its smart city this fall.

The Woven City, first announced at CES 2020, is a test bed town built on the automaker’s former factory site in Shizuoka prefecture. The city will initially house 100 Toyota-related employees and eventually grow its population to 2,000 and be filled with AI, self-driving vehicles, robotics and other smart technology.

“Woven City is where people can invent and develop all kinds of new products and ideas,” Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda said during his CES 2025 keynote on Monday, describing the city as a “living laboratory.”

Toyota Motor's Woven City in Shizuoka prefecture [TOYOTA MOTOR]

“We hope to use AI to help expand the reach of Woven City, allowing people to virtually interact,” he said.

Popular food firms Nissin Food; DyDo drinks, which sells soft drinks; UCC Japan, known for its instant and ground coffee; and Daikin Industries, an air conditioner manufacturer, will some of the first few companies to enter the Woven City.

BY CHO YONG-JUN, PARK EUN-JEE [[email protected]]