The star robot of the Nvidia conference is a jewel made in France

He has fox ears and somewhat resembles the main character from the video game Ratchet & Clank. He's the robot who broke the screen during the presentation dedicated to robotics from chip giant Nvidia's CES press conference.

His name? Miroki the boy or Miroka the girl, the two representatives of a race of friendly extra-terrestrials called Mirokai.

His nationality? French: the machine is a pure product of French Tech, and it is entirely designed and assembled in the Paris region by Enchanted Tools, a young company of 110 people.

Its cool look with fantastic and video game DNA fully embraced by the teams who developed: “We get a lot of comments and comparisons with these universes! And this is intentional: Mirokaï are social robots that can be in contact with children.*”

The Mirokaï also have a strange design and communication path: when we often first talk about the platform and technical constraints, entry into the world of these small 27 kg machines begins rather with the visual aspects and graphics. The group's website looks a bit like that of a cartoon or video game studio.
And for good reason…

A robotics veteran at the controls

This polished appearance and communication are not the result of chance. “These are friends from Gaumont animation who helped us design our universe“, explains Jérôme Monceaux, founder of the company Enchanted Tools.

Affable, the man is not a young startuper, but a veteran of the French robotics industry. Co-founder of NAO and Pepper at Aldebaran Robotics (which became SoftBank Robotics then Aldebaran again), Jérôme Monceaux was therefore involved in the two most famous hexagonal robots.

This allows him to understand the importance and urgency of scaling, this ability to sell and produce quickly. “We cannot tell you the exact figures of our sales, but we have already signed for several dozen of these robots“, explains J. Monceaux. Who adds that “we are aiming to build around 200 robots in 2025.“

The question is who can afford these toys at $30,000 each?

Not a worker, but a companion

While a big contract concerning “several dozen Mirokaï“is in the pipeline, Jérôme Monceaux explains to us that”the first versions of (our) robot are already deployed in the USA in orthodontic practices, hospitals and children's hospitals.“

The large orders on fire would therefore be aimed at these targets,”convinced by the first tests“The Mirokai are not there to pull teeth or operate on patients – they have no medical training.”In these applications they are social interfaces“, they explain to us on the Enchanted Tools stand. “They are there to help humans feel comfortable.“

Deliberately non-threatening design

To carry out their social missions, the Mirokaï have been designed to be as friendly as possible. Which means, in the world of robotics, being as non-threatening as possible.
In addition to the look of a friendly creature from the confines of the galaxy, it should be noted that the size has been carefully considered. “He measures one meter thirty and weighs twenty-seven kilos,” explains an engineer. “The robot should not be larger than adults and be approximately the size of children.“

The Mirokai can therefore look 10-year-old children in the eyes, and its kind face – projected from inside its skull onto a semi-opaque surface – displays only positive expressions. With its opposable thumb and its gripping capacity, it can grasp objects equipped with an in-house barcode system. “He must not be able to grab unintended objects to avoid causing damage.“, we are told.

This way design Primum non nocere (first do no harmthe first principle of caution for the body of doctors), somewhat limits the range of Mirokaï actions, but therefore makes it possible to avoid accidents which would be linked to failed manipulations. Which is hardly important at the moment, since the machine is currently mainly used to communicate with humans.

Powered by Nvidia chips

If Nvidia highlighted this robot during its CES plenary conference, it is not for its nice look. This is because at the heart of the metal and plastic machine, there is an electronic part designed by the GPU champion: not one, but two Nvidia Jetson Orin NX cards.

Based on the Ampere GPU architecture of the RTX30, each of these chips integrates 1024 CUDA cores as well as six (8 GB version) to eight (16 GB version) ARM Corectex A78AE CPU cores. The two Nvidia cards (and chips) are not only in charge of the locomotion part. Which is quite unique since the robot is balanced on a ball with three motor systems which maintain the balance constantly.

But Nvidia chips are also in charge of the AI ​​part, that is to say the recognition of the environment, faces, etc.

Regarding the interaction part “Mirokaï are currently using online LLMs“, which implies a permanent internet connection. But the control and certain basic uses are already carried out locally.

For having questioned the teams about a future local execution of LLM lightit’s definitely in the pipeline. “We are in the process of optimizing the system“, they explained to us, showing us a console allowing us to see the robot's actions live. “Nvidia chips are powerful and easy to program, but even lightweight LLMs consume a lot of resources. It has to make sense“, conclude the engineers we spoke to.

It now remains to be seen whether the robot, which has already had some success in the USA, can also be deployed significantly in France. Which is, certainly, well behind Germany (specialized in industrial robots), one of the most dynamic European countries in terms of robotics.