NVIDIA prepares GTC 2026 as global stage for the next phase of AI infrastructure

NVIDIA will host its annual GPU Technology Conference, GTC 2026, from 16 March to 19 March in San Jose, California, bringing together developers, researchers, business leaders and AI companies to examine how artificial intelligence is evolving into critical infrastructure for industry.

More than 30,000 participants from over 190 countries are expected to attend the conference. The event has increasingly become a focal point for announcements, technical discussions and ecosystem coordination across the AI computing stack.

GTC positions AI as industrial infrastructure

NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang is scheduled to deliver the conference keynote from SAP Center on Monday, 16 March, at 11:00 AM PT. The keynote will outline NVIDIA’s latest developments across areas including accelerated computing, AI factories, open models, agentic systems and physical AI.

“GTC is the epicenter of the AI industrial era,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “AI is no longer a single breakthrough or application — it is essential infrastructure. Every company will use it. Every nation will build it. From energy and chips to infrastructure, models and applications, every layer of the stack is advancing at once, and you’ll see that all come to life at GTC.”

The keynote will be livestreamed online and made available on demand. Registration is not required to view the broadcast.

A full-stack view of the AI ecosystem

GTC 2026 will focus heavily on what NVIDIA describes as a five-layer AI stack spanning energy, chips, infrastructure, models and applications. Sessions and demonstrations will explore how these layers interact and how companies are building systems that operate across them.

More than 1,000 sessions are scheduled across topics including AI factories, large-scale inference, robotics, digital twins, scientific computing and enterprise AI deployments. Discussions will also examine how organisations scale and optimise AI systems in production environments.

Huang is also expected to host a panel discussion on frontier AI models with industry leaders from organisations including A16Z, AI2, AMP Coalition, Black Forest Labs, Cursor, Reflection AI and Thinking Machines Lab.

A pre-keynote livestream programme beginning at 8:00 AM PT on 16 March will feature executives from several AI startups and technology companies. Speakers include Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas, LangChain CEO Harrison Chase, Skild AI CEO Deepak Pathak, OpenEvidence CEO Daniel Nadler and Mistral AI CEO Arthur Mensch.

Training and developer engagement remain central

Alongside the keynote and technical sessions, NVIDIA will run hands-on training programmes aimed at developers and engineers working across AI infrastructure.

The conference will include nine full-day workshops, more than 60 hands-on labs and onsite certification opportunities. These programmes cover topics such as accelerated computing, networking, data science and physical AI.

Developer and research tracks will also feature technical deep dives, CUDA sessions and infrastructure workshops focused on model training, inference optimisation and deployment across cloud, edge and sovereign environments. More than 150 poster presentations will showcase research from the global AI community.

Startups, investors and industry participation expand

More than 240 companies from the NVIDIA Inception startup programme will present technologies covering robotics, generative AI, enterprise software and physical AI systems.

Startup and venture programming will include investor-focused sessions and networking events designed to connect founders with venture firms building AI infrastructure and applications.

Organisations participating in GTC sessions and programmes include Adobe, Agile Robots, Agility, AI2, AMP Coalition, Black Forest Labs, Canva, CodeRabbit, Cohere, Crusoe Energy Systems, Cursor, Dassault Systèmes, Decagon, General Motors, Genspark, Google DeepMind, Hugging Face, IBM Research, idealworks, Inception Labs, Johnson & Johnson, Kimi (Moonshot AI), L’Oréal, Lucid Motors, Magic AI, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Poolside, Physical Intelligence, Reflection AI, Runway, Siemens, Shopify, Snap, Tesla, Together AI, Thinking Machines Lab, Uber Technologies, Universal Robots, the U.S. Department of Energy and Vention.

Beyond the conference sessions, the event will expand into multiple venues across downtown San Jose, including community activities and public programming scheduled throughout the week.