GTC 2025: 5 key takeaways from Nvidia's developer conference
Nvidia's CEO and founder Jensen Huang took to the stage at the semiconductor company's annual software conference on Tuesday to announce new products.
While giving his keynote speech, Huang also expanded on his thoughts surrounding the future of artificial intelligence (AI) which he said was 'at an inflexion point'.
In case you missed it, here are five key takeaways from GTC 2025 in San Jose, California.
'AI agents will be everywhere,' Huang told the audience at his keynote, referring to the technology that is designed to take autonomous actions to assist humans without their input.
'How they run, what enterprises run, and how we run it will be fundamentally different. And so we need a new line of computers,' he continued.
The answer to this large computing requirement, he said, is two new computers, called DGX Spark (previously called Project Digits) and DGX Station.
DGX Spark is already available and allows developers to prototype, fine-tune, and inference (the process that machines use to conclude new data) the latest generation of reasoning AI models, such as DeepSeek, Meta, Google, and others. Nvidia says that it can also 'seamlessly deploy' to data centres or the cloud.
It is available in a desktop-friendly size.
The much bigger DGX Station is in the works, but Huang said 'this is what a PC should look like and this is what computers will run in the future. And we have a whole lineup for enterprise now, from little, tiny ones to workstation ones'.
It resembles a tower desktop and like its smaller cousin, will allow users to prototype fine-tune, and run AI models.
DGX Station is marketed toward enterprise customers that would need to run heavy AI workloads. It features Nvidia's so-called 'super chip,' the Grace Blackwell Ultra.
Nvidia announced several technologies to supercharge humanoid robot development.
One includes a very Star Wars-esque-style robot that is being developed in partnership with Disney Research and Google DeepMind. It is called Newton and is Nvidia's physics engine, a computer software that helps simulate robot behaviour, to develop robots.
One of the small Disney robots made its debut on stage next to Jensen. The entertainment company hopes to bring these robots to its theme parks next year.
Nvidia said Newton is supposed to help robots be more 'expressive' and 'learn how to handle complex tasks with greater precision'.
The company also announced NVIDIA Isaac GR00T N1, a technology it says is the world's 'first open, fully customisable foundation model for generalised humanoid reasoning and skills'.
Huang said that the future will see a move from traditional data centres - buildings dedicated to handling general-purpose computing - to AI factories, which handle AI specifically.
The European Commission has made AI factories one of its priorities for the bloc's AI development.
'AI workloads aren't static. The next wave of AI applications will push power, cooling, and networking demands even further,' Nvidia states in a blog post on its website.
Huang announced Omniverse Blueprint, which lets engineers design, test, and optimise a new generation of intelligence manufacturing data centres using digital twins.
One of the uses of Blueprint is to ensure AI factories are ready by predicting how changes in AI workloads will affect power and cooling at the data centre scale as well.
Huang announced a partnership with General Motors (GM), the largest US carmaker, to integrate AI chips and software into its autonomous vehicle technology and manufacturing.
The partnership will see Nvidia's platforms train GM's AI models to develop its next-generation vehicles, factories, and robots.
AI is now going out 'to the rest of the world,' in robotics and self-driving cars, factories, and wireless networks,' Huang said.
'One of the earliest industries AI went into was autonomous vehicles… We build technology that almost every single self-driving car company uses,' he added.
Huang also announced Nvidia was building a quantum computing research centre in Boston.
The NVIDIA Accelerated Quantum Research Center, or NVAQC, will provide 'cutting-edge technologies to advance quantum computing,' according to the company.
'Quantum computing will augment AI supercomputers to tackle some of the world's most important problems, from drug discovery to materials development,' Huang said in his keynote.
'Working with the wider quantum research community to advance CUDA-quantum hybrid computing, the NVIDIA Accelerated Quantum Research Center is where breakthroughs will be made to create large-scale, useful, accelerated quantum supercomputers'.
A group of 35 EU lawmakers has called upon Henna Virkkunen, the European Commissioner in charge of technology, to require member states to exclude high-risk vendors from 5G telecom infrastructure in the wake of a probe into alleged bribery of MEPs involving Huawei.
'We call upon you to make the EU toolbox for 5G security a legally binding instrument, ensuring its full and uniform application to high-risk vendors,' they said in a letter seen by Euronews.
The lawmakers include Aura Salla (Finland/EPP), Svenja Hahn (Germany/Renew), Bart Groothuis (Netherlands/Renew), and Alexandra Geese (Germany/Greens-EFA).
In 2020 the Commission adopted a so-called 5G Cybersecurity Toolbox to protect 5G networks from cyber threats and risks. EU member states agreed to apply restrictions for suppliers considered to be high risk – such as China's Huawei and ZTE – including necessary exclusions, following security concerns.
To date, only a limited number of countries have taken concrete steps to ban the companies. Euronews reported last year that fewer than half the 27 EU member states have used legal powers to impose restrictions on such telecom suppliers.
Wednesday's letter says that making the toolbox binding is 'necessary to establish a uniform and robust defence against foreign interference'.
'The time for voluntary measures has passed,' they add.
Earlier this month in a telecom congress in Barcelona, Virkkunen said that she will explore ways to speed up the implementation and enforcement of 5G security measures taken by member states to protect critical communication networks from foreign interference.
Huawei lobbyists were banned from entering the Parliament's premises on Friday, following allegations of bribery linked to the Chinese company's lobbying activities. The ban is temporary and will remain in place until the authorities conclude their investigation.
Huawei said in a statement that it has "a zero-tolerance policy towards corruption or other wrongdoing, and we are committed to complying with all applicable laws and regulations at all times".
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