NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang discusses the state of AI as we begin 2026, covering rapid improvements in reasoning, the profitability of inference, why AI will increase productivity without taking jobs, the future of robotics, the importance of open source, and which sectors are poised for their 'ChatGPT moment'.
Drawing surprising parallels between AI agents and robotics, this talk argues that the agent development community is repeating a key mistake from the self-driving industry: underestimating the difficulty of action and over-focusing on reasoning. It covers essential robotics concepts like DAgger, MDPs, simulation, and the critical importance of a robust offline infrastructure, explaining why perfect reasoning doesn't guarantee successful execution in the real world.
Tony Zhao and Cheng Chi, co-founders of Sunday Robotics, discuss the state of AI robotics, framing it as being between a "GPT moment" (the core technology is known) and a "ChatGPT moment" (a scalable consumer product). They detail the key research, data collection innovations, and full-stack engineering required to build Memo, their general-purpose home robot designed to free humanity from chores.
Dr. Fei-Fei Li discusses the history of AI, from the creation of ImageNet that sparked the deep learning revolution to the future of AI with spatial intelligence and world models. She introduces 'Marble', the first large world model, and explains its potential to unlock new frontiers in robotics, virtual production, and scientific discovery, all while emphasizing a human-centered approach to technological advancement.
Waymo Distinguished Engineer Vincent Vanhoucke discusses the core challenges of autonomous driving, explaining how Waymo fuses data from cameras, LiDAR, and radar to build a robust perception system. He delves into the "closed-loop" problem, the critical role of generative AI and simulation in training and validation, and how modern multimodal models are used in a teacher-student framework to distill vast world knowledge into the vehicle's onboard system, aiming for a safety standard that surpasses human performance.
A discussion with Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz on the true nature of AI creativity, the limitations of intelligence in leadership, why the current AI boom is not a bubble, and the coming platform shifts and geopolitical race in robotics.