The Thinking Machine

Physical AI and Robotics at NVIDIA GTC 2026 with Diana Wolf Torres

The Thinking Machine

Show Notes

Diana Wolf Torres joins The Thinking Machine podcast to break down everything we saw at GTC 2026. Diana is the author of the DROIDS robotics newsletter and the Deep Learning with the Wolf AI newsletter, and we're both NVIDIA-invited creators who have been covering this space together since GTC 2025.

We start with what stood out from Jensen's keynote — the shift to measuring tokens per watt, the Vera Rubin chip and why it might make your Blackwell obsolete before you install it, and NVIDIA's trillion-dollar hardware number.

Then we get into OpenClaw, the DGX Spark, and why agentic AI is something you want to be experimenting with now.

From there we hit the show floor and go company by company through the robotics that impressed us most — from robots filling real labor gaps to humanoids working in tandem. We also dig into robot safety, why it matters more than most people realize, and the role simulation plays in getting there.

Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 03:20 - Keynote Overview 09:29 - Build-a-Claw and OpenClaw 17:52 - Caterpillar's Autonomous Vehicles 21:48 - Unitree's H2 Robot 25:33 - Disney's Olaf Robot 35:13 - WORKR's industrial robots 41:55 - Psyonic's robotic hand and tactile sensing 43:30 - Humanoid and KinectIQ 49:08 - Noble Machines 52:15 - Generalist and GEN-1 57:11 - OpenMind 1:03:21 - Syncere - Lume 1:16:04 - Fauna Robotics and RIVR 1:20:19 - Agibot and Agibot World 2026 1:22:45 - Asimov

About Diana Wolf Torres: Diana Wolf Torres is a Silicon Valley-based AI and robotics writer who publishes two Substack newsletters: Deep Learning with the Wolf, covering AI developments and ethics, and DROIDS!, focused on robotics news, founder interviews, and field reporting. She produces on-the-ground content from conferences like RoboBusiness and maker events across the Bay Area, translating complex technical developments for broad audiences.

Diana on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diana-wolf-torres/

DROIDS! Newsletter: droids.substack.com/

Deep Learning with the Wolf: https://dianawolftorres.substack.com/

Website: www.droidsnewsletter.com/

Thanks to Lightwheel for making this episode possible. Learn about how Lightwheel is making physical AI successful at https://lightwheel.ai

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