NVIDIA today unveiled a credit-card sized module that harnesses the power of machine learning to enable a new generation of smart, autonomous machines. The NVIDIA Jetson TX1 module has been designed to power a new wave of smart devices -- drones that don't just fly by remote control, but navigate their way through a forest for search and rescue; compact security surveillance systems that don't just scan crowds, but identify suspicious activity; and robots that don't just perform tasks, but tailor them to individuals' habits -- by incorporating capabilities such as machine learning, computer vision, navigation and more.

Nvidia announced their latest-generation Tegra X1 SoC at CES 2015 and integrated it into some of their own products over the past several months. The new, updated Jetson product based on the X1 is designed to refresh the platform with the more powerful Tegra X1 SoC and its full ARMv8 AArch64 CPU + Maxwell GPU capabilities.

NVIDIA says that that Jetson TX1 should offer 2-3 times the performance of Tegra K1, particularly where the GPU is involved. It delivers 1 teraflops of performance -- comparable to the fastest supercomputer from 15 years ago -- while drawing very little power (approximately 10W.)

Along with the TX1 SoC, NVIDIA has attached 4GB of LPDDR4-3200, a 16GB eMMC flash module, a 2x2 802.11ac + Bluetooth wireless radio, and a Gigabit Ethernet controller.

I/O connectivity is provided by a separate board,, with the Jetson TX1 using a 400 pin board-to-board connector to attach to other devices. The Jetson TX1 carrier board is designed to offer TX1 as a development kit and contains a full suite of I/O including Ethernet, WiFi + BT antenna connectors, HDMI, USB, M.2, a large number of GPIOs, a camera serial interface with 5MP camera, and a PCIe 2.0 x4 slot.

Jetson TX1 is the first embedded computer designed to process deep neural networks -- computer software that can learn to recognize objects or interpret information. This new approach to program computers is called machine learning and can be used to perform complex tasks such as recognizing images, processing conversational speech, or analyzing a room full of furniture and finding a path to navigate across it.

Available as a module, Jetson TX1 is also built into a Developer Kit, which enables hobbyists and professionals to develop and test advanced autonomous devices.

The board supports the Linux For Tegra and popular ROS (Robot Operating System), which is widely used in robots. With support for Linux, it's possible to use the board as a Linux gaming PC, like the predecessor board. The TX1 does not support Android.

Key features of Jetson TX1 include:

• GPU: 1 teraflops, 256-core Maxwell architecture-based GPU offering best-in-class performance
• CPU: 64-bit ARM A57 CPUs
• Video: 4K video encode and decode
• Camera: Support for 1400 megapixels/second
• Memory: 4GB LPDDR4; 25.6 gigabits/second
• Storage: 16GB eMMC
• Wi-Fi/Bluetooth: 802.11ac 2x2 Bluetooth ready
• Networking: 1GB Ethernet
• OS Support: Linux for Tegra
• Size: 50mm x 87mm, slightly smaller than a credit card

Jetson TX1 includes an SDK for embedded visual computing, including:

• cuDNN is a CUDA-accelerated library for machine learning. For both training and inference, it is compatible with many industry-standard frameworks, including Caffe, Theano and Torch.
• VisionWorks is a CUDA-accelerated library and framework for computer vision. It is an implementation of the OpenVX 1.1 specification with additional NVIDIA extensions.
• Support for the latest graphics drivers and APIs, including OpenGL 4.5, OpenGL ES 3.1 and Vulkan.
• Support for CUDA 7.0. CUDA turns the GPU into a general-purpose processor, giving developers access to tremendous parallel performance and power efficiency.

The NVIDIA Jetson TX1 Developer Kit can be preordered starting Nov. 12 for $599 in the United States, with availability in other regions in the next few weeks. The Jetson TX1 module will be available in early 2016 at a suggested price of $299 (in quantities of 1,000 or more) from distributors around the world.