Huang Pushes Industrial Humanoid Robot Adoption

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that the adoption of humanoid robots in industry is opening a multitrillion-dollar economic opportunity. In an announcement made at Computex 2026 in Taipei, Taiwan, the executive backed humanoid robotics to bring physical AI to the world’s largest industries but indicated there were barriers to academic work to this end, which it aims to resolve by the introduction of the reference robot.

The machine uses Nvidia compute systems and the Isaac GR00T development platform, a Unitree H2 body standing at almost 6 feet tall and weighing 50 pounds, and Sharpa Wave tactile five-finger hands. “Nvidia Isaac GR00T Reference Humanoid Robot gives researchers a single, open platform to make breakthrough discoveries toward general-purpose physical intelligence,” Huang added.

During his keynote at the event, Huang explained that they have built this for higher education and university researchers, because for them to build this is insanely hard to do, pointing to the complexities and expense of starting from scratch in every project. Nvidia noted that, by using its compute and open software stack at the core, the reference design gives research teams a more unified, secure foundation for advancing humanoid robotics.