A deep dive into on-device and data center inference for robots, including a primer on robot models, deployments, supply chains, the "network wall", and more (SemiAnalysis)

The article highlights a strategic shift in robotics architecture: deciding whether inference runs on-device or in the data center will materially affect latency, reliability, total cost of ownership, and the scalability of robot deployments. For CIOs and technology leaders, the key implication is that robotics is becoming an infrastructure and supply-chain decision as much as a software one, with compute efficiency, memory, and network constraints (“the network wall”) shaping where workloads should run and how IT should budget, procure, and support them. IT organizations will need to align robotics roadmaps with edge compute, AI silicon, and connectivity strategy to avoid costly performance bottlenecks and to optimize fleet-wide economics.