Final week, I attended NVIDIA’s 2026 GTC occasion in San Jose, Calif. This yr, the corporate anticipated over 30,000 attendees throughout the 4 days of the present. To host everybody, NVIDIA held occasions throughout a number of completely different venues, together with the San Jose Conference Middle, the San Jose Middle for Performing Arts, The Tech Interactive, and the SAP Middle.
GTC kicked off with a keynote from NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang. In the course of the keynote, he highlighted NVIDIA’s partnerships with main robotics firms, like ABB Robotics, FANUC, Agility Robotics, Determine AI, Boston Dynamics, and extra. On the finish of the keynote, Disney Imagineering’s Olaf robotic joined Huang onstage for a short dialog.
“The listing of points with right this moment’s robots is sort of massive, however they’re simply engineering issues,” Huang mentioned throughout a press Q&A on the present. “The actual fact [is] that you could possibly see them strolling round, they usually’re already beginning to do issues. When you see existence, proof of a expertise, the refinement takes lower than 5 years.”
All through this yr’s GPU Expertise Convention, I had the prospect to work together with and even management robots, see new techniques for the primary time, and converse with business specialists. Listed below are three takeaways from the present.
1. Robots are rising extra succesful and are being taken extra significantly
At a present like GTC, which focuses on a variety of technical industries, the robots can typically really feel extra like science tasks than industrial merchandise. This wasn’t the sensation at GTC 2026, nevertheless. The robotic demonstrations there targeted on displaying actual duties and particular talent units.
“A number of years in the past, it was very research-oriented,” mentioned Leo Ma, the co-founder and CEO of RoboForce. “Now, you’re taking a look at getting a lot nearer to what the robotic does. What worth is it offering?”
For instance, on the Vention sales space, the corporate showcased its new Fast Operator AI system with a deep bin-picking demo. Within the NVIDIA sales space, Workr confirmed one in every of its industrial deployments with Fireclay Tile, automating repetitive noticed work on the California-based ceramics producer.
Equally, the humanoids on the present have been principally working or doing actual demos, whereas a number of have been nonetheless standing nonetheless on the sidelines. Humanoid, a U.Ok.-based developer, confirmed the wheeled model of its robotic listening to attendees and choosing the objects they requested for.
2. With AI, robots are simpler to deploy than ever
Unsurprisingly, synthetic intelligence was one of many largest subjects of dialog at GTC. Relating to robotics, current advances in AI are making deployments swifter and simpler than ever earlier than.
On the Teradyne sales space, Common Robots (UR) collaborated with Generalist, an organization that creates AI basis fashions for robotics. The businesses confirmed a fine-precision telephone packing demo, which got here collectively in only a few days earlier than the convention.
“We solely had a number of days in our workplace to organize a stay demo with a robotic we had by no means touched earlier than, after which we ran it stay for 4 days,” Pete Florence, the co-founder and CEO of Generalist, advised The Robotic Report. “This velocity of with the ability to put collectively a brand new robotic demo, on model new {hardware}, speaks to the energy of the generalization of GEN-0 and wouldn’t have been potential a number of months in the past.”
UR additionally debuted and demonstrated the UR AI Coach, a system it created in collaboration with Scale AI. The AI Coach permits a human operator to information UR robots by way of duties. At GTC, I acquired to information two UR3e “chief” robots to regulate two UR7e “follower” robots. The system was intuitive, straightforward to make use of, and offered power suggestions when the robots touched one thing.
Even on the {hardware} facet, many builders are specializing in making it simpler to create robots. Nexcom, for instance, launched its humanoid robotic growth equipment.
3. Simulation performs a task in each a part of the robotic lifecycle
As robots make their means into more and more difficult environments, simulation coaching turns into increasingly more necessary.
Jenny Shern, the overall supervisor of NexCOBOT, mentioned simulation is vital for tackling messy, out of doors environments. “I see a variety of customers beginning to bridge the hole between sim-to-real and real-to-sim,” she mentioned.
ABB launched its RoboStudio HyperReality, which integrates NVIDIA Omniverse libraries to shut the lengthy‑standing sim‑to‑actual hole in industrial robotics.
“For our finish customers, OEMs, we will actually lower engineering occasions for brand new merchandise, as a result of we’ll be capable of do concurrent engineering across the product and the manufacturing unit on the similar time,” mentioned Marc Segura, the president of ABB Robotics. “We’re going to get the drawings of the product, however with all of the traits of physics and so forth, we will already plan for the manufacturing unit, for the robotic line.”
Additionally on the convention, many firms, similar to Texas Devices (TI), emphasised the significance of utilizing simulation at every stage of robotic growth.
“When it comes to expertise, one factor that has been highlighted constantly at GTC is the significance of simulations,” mentioned Giovanni Campanella, the commercial automation and robotics common supervisor at TI. “We speak so much about {hardware}, and mainly simulating the {hardware} earlier than you even construct it. Earlier than you even construct the machine, you may simulate how the radar is performing in an setting the place the robotic goes to be.”
Sharpa, an organization that develops robotic arms with tactile sensors, additionally highlighted the significance of simulation.
“GTC is a superb place to grasp the progress within the Bodily AI area this previous yr, from higher mannequin coaching effectivity to {hardware} enhancements,” mentioned Alicia Veneziani, Sharpa’s world vice chairman of GTM and president of Europe. “Sharpa has been driving this wave too. We demonstrated how our human-like arms improved instrument manipulation utilizing tactile AI, and we’re fixing the information drought with high-fidelity simulation and human video information in collaboration with Nvidia.”
GTC is changing into an AI and robotics present
Entrance Desk Data Concierge assisted GTC26 guests with navigation and occasion data. | Credit score: The Robotic Report
Usually, it felt like robots have been changing into a bigger a part of GTC.
“I believe total on the convention it was nice to see the ecosystem proceed to develop,” mentioned Generalist’s Florence. “There have been a number of new robots on show, and the shape elements proceed to evolve. All of those robots will want brains, and it’s a really thrilling time.”
All through the present, NVIDIA had built-in a variety of robots into the attendee expertise. Intbot‘s humanoid robotic greeted folks on the reception desk, whereas Serve Robots have been zipping alongside inside and outdoors of the conference middle.
“We’re hundreds of thousands of truck drivers quick. We’re tens of hundreds of thousands of producing staff quick,” Huang mentioned. “Employment may be very excessive, and but, many firms don’t have sufficient labor, so robots will fill in that hole.”
“No. 1, on account of filling that hole, all of our nation’s economic system will develop, and when the economic system grows, most firms have a tendency to rent extra folks,” he added. “They’ll rent extra folks to handle extra robots.”
The publish 3 robotics developments from NVIDIA GTC 2026 appeared first on The Robotic Report.