Speech AI can assist human agents in contact centers, power virtual assistants and digital avatars, generate live captioning in video conferencing, and much more. Under the hood, these voice-based technologies orchestrate a network of automatic speech recognition (ASR) and text-to-speech (TTS) pipelines to deliver intelligent, real-time responses. Building these real-time speech AI applications from scratch is no easy task. From setting up GPU-optimized development environments to deploying speech AI inferences using customized large transformer-based language models in under 300ms, speech AI pipelines require dedicated time, expertise, and investment. In this post, we walk through how you can simplify the speech AI development process by using NVIDIA Riva to run GPU-optimized applications.

Around February 2021 early access was granted to Jarvis 1.0 Beta. On 28 July 2021, NVIDIA Jarvis got rebranded to Riva. I always thought of the name Jarvis to be too generally used already. The good news is, the core technologies, performance and roadmap remain unchanged. On 28 March 2022 NVIDIA Riva 2.0 was launched.

We are excited to bring Transform 2022 back in-person July 19 and virtually July 20 - August 3. Join AI and data leaders for insightful talks and exciting networking opportunities. This week, Nvidia announced a slew of AI-focused hardware and software innovations during its March GTC 2022 conference. The company unveiled the Grace CPU Superchip, a data center processor designed to serve high-performance compute and AI applications. And it detailed the H100, the first in a new line of GPU hardware aimed at accelerating AI workloads including training large natural language models. But one announcement that slipped under the radar was the general availability of Nvidia's Riva 2.0 SDK, as well as the company's Riva Enterprise managed offering. Both can be deployed for building speech AI applications and point to the growing market for speech recognition in particular.

Nvidia has unveiled a revamped slate of AI services, including a new version of the Riva speech AI SDK. Riva 2.0 upgrades the speech recognition and text-to-speech models and arrives in tandem with Riva Rnterprise for companies looking to deploy the software on a larger scale. The new version of Riva adds and improves the features of the original iteration. The automatic speech recognition functions in seven languages and offers domain-specific customization. The software package also includes the neural-based text-to-speech service for creating lifelike human voices.

"We shape our tools and, thereafter, our tools shape us." Making astute technology decisions at the inception of your chatbot journey has a significant impact on what your chatbot's trajectory will be. Choose and shape your tools wisely. Because, later in the process those tools will shape and influence the way you plan, develop, scale your chatbot. Impediments are usually system or framework related.

NVIDIA has been steadily advancing its AI assistant technology in recent months, and now it's clear just how all the pieces fit together. The company has introduced Omniverse Avatar (for 3D assistant creation) and Riva (custom AI voice creation) platforms that, combined, lead to surprisingly realistic virtual personas with relatively little effort -- or, in one case, deliberately unrealistic. In one demo, used to highlight NVIDIA's AI-powered Maxine toolkit, the company created an Omniverse Avatar from a woman's photo and used Riva to train the voice based on that woman, convert text to speech and translate to different languages. The digital stand-in looks and sounds much like the real person (aside from a couple of stiff-sounding translations), and can even turn its head while maintaining natural-looking eye contact. As you might imagine, this could lead to more relatable virtual helpers at kiosks and websites.

NVIDIA has been steadily advancing its AI assistant technology in recent months, and now it's clear just how all the pieces fit together. The company has introduced Omniverse Avatar (for 3D assistant creation) and Riva (custom AI voice creation) platforms that, combined, lead to surprisingly realistic virtual personas with relatively little effort -- or, in one case, deliberately unrealistic. In one demo, used to highlight NVIDIA's AI-powered Maxine toolkit, the company created an Omniverse Avatar from a woman's photo and used Riva to train the voice based on that woman, convert text to speech and translate to different languages. The digital stand-in looks and sounds much like the real person (aside from a couple of stiff-sounding translations), and can even turn its head while maintaining natural-looking eye contact. As you might imagine, this could lead to more relatable virtual helpers at kiosks and websites.

Artificial intelligence (AI) used to be a fantasy, found only in science fiction. Today, it propels society forward in countless ways; even the phones in our pockets include multilingual translators, photo apps that recognize faces, and intelligent assistants that can understand spoken commands (thanks, Siri). This is all made possible through the process of deep learning -- and Dr. Pablo Rivas, an assistant professor of computer science at Baylor, has literally written the book on the subject. "I first fell in love with the field of AI and the principles that can explain human intelligence 20 years ago, when it was all beginning," says Rivas. "Now, the industry is booming. And while the advances are incredible, they can also be a little disarming."

In 1896, Italian physician Riva Rocci published the first of four papers on an invention that is still widely used. It was his take on the sphygmomanometer, a device to measure the pressure that a pumping heart exerts on the arteries. Rocci's basic approach of tying a cuff to the upper arm remains standard, and it is a vital tool because hypertension is one of the most serious medical ailments. The CDC reports that nearly half of all adults in the US have high blood pressure, and it is a primary or contributing factor in 500,000 deaths annually--it's like Covid-19 every year. Only a fourth of people with hypertension have it under control, in part because sphygmomanometers, whether used in a doctor's office or via clunky home units, don't supply a steady stream of readings, multiple times a day and in different settings, to help determine the proper treatment.

Speakers powered by smart assistants are becoming dime-a-dozen commodities. In most cases, a smart speaker is good for voice commands, but I haven't found their musical reproduction particularly satisfying. The Riva Concert is part of Riva Audio's new Voice line of smart speakers that also includes the larger Riva Stadium. This sweet-sounding portable speaker is built to satisfy music lovers, with refined high-tech features you don't often see in smart speakers. Unpacking the Riva, I noted its heavy, solid build. Under the hood, you'll find a 50-watt Class D amplifier powering the three active drivers and three passive radiators.