Nvidia Wants to Be the "Android" of "Physical AI"
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Nvidia Wants to Be the "Android" of "Physical AI"
NVIDIA is building a complete ecosystem aimed at becoming the default platform in the robotics field, replicating Android's dominance in smartphones, and driving the migration of AI from the cloud to the physical world.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsWritten by: Bao Yilong
Source: Wall Street News
NVIDIA is working to establish the default platform for the robotics field, aiming to replicate Android's dominant position in smartphone operating systems.
On January 5th, at CES 2026, NVIDIA released several open-source foundation models, including multiple open-source foundation models that enable robots to reason, plan, and adapt across various tasks and environments. All models are available on the Hugging Face platform.
NVIDIA also launched the next-generation Blackwell architecture-based Jetson T4000 graphics card and an open-source command center named OSMO to support the entire robotics development workflow. The company further deepened its collaboration with Hugging Face, aiming to lower the hardware barriers and technical hurdles for robot training.
This strategic move reflects the industry trend of artificial intelligence migrating from the cloud to the physical world. As sensor costs decline, simulation technology advances, and AI models' generalization capabilities improve, robots are evolving from performing single tasks towards becoming more general-purpose. Companies like Boston Dynamics and Caterpillar have already begun using NVIDIA technology, and robotics has become the fastest-growing category on the Hugging Face platform.
Building a Comprehensive Model Matrix
The foundation models released by NVIDIA this time constitute the core capability layer for physical AI.
The two world models, Cosmos Transfer 2.5 and Cosmos Predict 2.5, are responsible for synthetic data generation and robot policy evaluation, allowing robot behaviors to be validated in simulation environments.
Cosmos Reason 2, as a reasoning-based vision-language model, endows AI systems with the ability to observe, understand, and act in the physical world.
Isaac GR00T N1.6 is a vision-language-action model specifically developed for humanoid robots. Using Cosmos Reason as its reasoning core, it achieves whole-body control functionality, enabling humanoid robots to perform locomotion and object manipulation simultaneously.
Isaac Lab-Arena, introduced by NVIDIA at CES, is an open-source simulation framework hosted on GitHub, designed to address the industry pain point of robot capability validation.
As robots learn complex tasks like precise object handling and cable installation, validating these capabilities in physical environments is often costly, time-consuming, and risky.
This platform integrates resources, task scenarios, training tools, and existing benchmarks like Libero, RoboCasa, and RoboTwin, establishing a common framework for an industry that previously lacked unified standards. The accompanying open-source platform OSMO serves as a command center, bringing together the entire workflow from data generation to training, supporting both desktop and cloud environments.
Lowering Hardware Barriers
The new Thor series member, the Jetson T4000 graphics card, features the Blackwell architecture. As a cost-effective edge computing upgrade solution, it delivers 1200 teraflops of AI compute power and 64GB of memory, with power consumption controlled between 40 and 70 watts.
NVIDIA also deepened its collaboration with Hugging Face by integrating Isaac and GR00T technologies into Hugging Face's LeRobot framework, connecting NVIDIA's 2 million robotics developers with Hugging Face's 13 million AI builders.
The open-source humanoid robot Reachy 2 now offers direct support for NVIDIA's Jetson Thor chip, allowing developers to test different AI models without being locked into proprietary systems.
Early signs indicate NVIDIA's strategy is taking effect. Robotics has become the fastest-growing category on the Hugging Face platform, with NVIDIA's models leading in downloads. Companies like Boston Dynamics, Caterpillar, Franka Robots, and NEURA Robotics are already using NVIDIA technology.
This strategic layout reflects the company's intent to make robotics development more accessible while positioning itself as a provider of underlying hardware and software, similar to Android's role for smartphone manufacturers.
As AI shifts from the cloud to machines capable of learning in the physical world, cheaper sensors, advanced simulation technology, and AI models that generalize across tasks are driving a comprehensive industry transformation.
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