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Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Stocks to watch next week: Nvidia, Salesforce, Dell, Costco and Kingfisher
Developments around US trade relations and economic concerns continue to occupy much of investors' attention, but earnings from chipmaking giant Nvidia (NVDA), among others, will also be in the spotlight in the coming week. There will be a quieter start to the week with US markets closed on Monday for the Memorial Day holiday. UK markets will also be closed on Monday for the late May bank holiday. After traders return from the long weekend, the major focus will be on Nvidia (NVDA), which is due to release first quarter earnings on the Wednesday, as the last of the Magnificent 7 tech behemoths to report this earnings season. Salesforce (CRM), which provides customer relationship management (CRM) software, is another key tech name reporting on Wednesday. Computer maker Dell (DELL) is then set to report on Thursday, on the back of it unveiling new AI servers powered by Nvidia (NVDA) chips this week. In the retail sector, investors will be looking at wholesale retailer Costco's (COST) latest results, to help gauge US consumer sentiment amid economic uncertainty. On the London market, investors will be hoping that B&Q-owner Kingfisher (KGF.L) has benefitted from the UK's rise in retail sales, thanks to warmer weather in April. Here's more on what to look out for: Expectations have become increasingly high around Nvidia (NVDA) earnings, which was demonstrated in the market reaction to its full-year results in February. Shares fell after the release of the results, despite the chipmaker beating estimates on the top and bottom line. Revenue of $39.3bn (£29.1bn) beat estimates of £38.2bn and earnings per share of $0.89 were also ahead of forecasts of $0.84. In addition, the company said it expected to generate revenue of $43bn for the first quarter, better than the $42.3bn expected. However, Nvidia (NVDA) guided to gross profit margins of 70.6% to 71% in the first quarter, which would be down on the 73% it reported in the fourth quarter. Ahead of its latest earnings, Nvidia (NVDA) made a flurry of announcements around new technologies at the start of this week, with CEO Jensen Huang revealing more details at the Computex tech expo in Taipei, Taiwan. This included showcasing Nvidia's (NVDA) Isaac GR00T-Dreams, which the company described as a blueprint that helps generate large amounts of synthetic motion data that physical artificial intelligence (AI) developers can use to teach robots new behaviours. Read more: Five 'buy' rated European travel stocks In addition to its robotics capabilities, Nvidia (NVDA) unveiled its new NVLink Fusion offering, which allows customers to build custom servers using Nvidia's (NVDA) Grace CPU and a third-party AI chip paired with Nvidia's (NVDA) various server infrastructure offerings. At the event on Wednesday, Huang also called on Jensen Huang called on the Trump administration to ease Biden-era curbs on AI chip exports to China. Attention will now turn to Nvidia's (NVDA) first quarter results, which are due out on Wednesday, 28 May. AJ Bell's investment experts, Russ Mould, Danni Hewson and Dan Coatsworth said that Nvidia (NVDA) "has had the happy knack of beating estimates, which on this occasion will be benchmarked against the guidance given by chief executive Jensen Huang alongside the full-year results back in February. Just as important will be any steer or forecasts for the second quarter, which runs from May through to July." "Note that Nvidia (NVDA) has already signalled it may take a $5.5 billion one-off charge against its first-quarter results, relating to US bans on shipment of silicon chips to China," they said. "These costs relate to the H20 chipset and cover materials and penalties, although the company is likely to present this cost as extraordinary and strip it out of the published figures." In terms of guidance for the second quarter, they said that analyst consensus had a forecast of $45.4bn in sales and $1 for earnings per share. In addition to Nvidia's announcements, Microsoft (MSFT) and Alphabet-owned Google (GOOG, GOOGL) have also unveiled new tech features this week, including developments around AI agents. AI agents, which has emerged as one of biggest trends in tech, are semi- or fully autonomous pieces of AI software that can perform certain tasks for users. Salesforce (CRM) is another player in this space, so investors will be keen to understand the take-up of its technology, when it reports first quarter earnings on Wednesday. Its platform Agentforce allows companies to build and customise AI agents to help automate certain functions for customer service. In its full-year results in February, Salesforce (CRM) guided to total revenue of $9.71bn to $9.76bn for the first quarter, which would represent 6% to 7% growth year-on-year. Diluted earnings per share are expected to come in at between $1.49 and $1.51 for the quarter. For the year, Salesforce (CRM) has guided to revenue of $40.5bn to $40.9bn, which would be up 7% to 9% on its 2025 fiscal year. Diluted earnings per share for the 2026 fiscal year are expected to be in the range of $6.95 and $7.03. Read more: Stocks that are trending today Aarin Chiekrie, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said this latest set of results follow a year of "modest revenue growth". "Having spent the past year or two rightsizing the business, costs are in a much better place, and both profits and cash flows are feeling the benefits," he said. "While this was a necessary step, the focus now shifts back to driving top-line growth." Chiekrie said that revenue growth guidance for the first quarter was "softer than markets were hoping for at the time." "This reflects a tricky macroenvironment where businesses are still being selective of their software spending," he said. "Missing this target range next week would likely weigh heavily on investor sentiment." "Investors were excited to hear Salesforce's (CRM) AI platform, Agentforce, gained early momentum late last year with over 3,000 paid AI deals," Chiekrie added. "But with around 150,000 customers, these deals aren't dial movers just yet. Some analysts think it's just a matter of time, and markets are keen to hear whether the positive momentum has continued into the new year." Computer maker Dell (DELL) also hosted its own tech event this past week, which came with it sharing details of its collaboration with Nvidia. On Monday, Dell unveiled new AI servers, powered by Nvidia's (NVDA) Blackwell Ultra chips. At the Dell Technologies (DELL) World 2025 event, the company's CEO Michael Dell and Nvidia's (NVDA) Huang talked about a range of new offerings as part of its Dell AI Factory ecosystem, which together with the chipmaker, is aimed at making AI accessible to business of all sizes. Dell (DELL) said he envisioned a future where AI becomes "as essential as electricity" and that it could unlock an estimated $15tn in global economic value by 2030. Read more: More interest rate cuts in doubt after surprise inflation surge In terms of company performance, Dell (DELL) reported mixed fourth quarter results in February. Revenue of $23.93bn fell short of estimates of $24.65bn, but adjusted earnings per share of $2.68 beat analyst forecasts of $2.53. For the first quarter, Dell (DELL) also issued weaker-than-expected revenue guidance, forecasting sales forecasting sales between $22.5bn and $23.5bn, slightly missing the Street's expectations of $23.55bn. Shares in Dell (DELL) declined following the release of the results and have since recovered but the stock is still trading nearly 3% in the red year-to-date. Earnings from major US retailers are being closely watched, to help understand consumer behaviour, as concerns about the economy persist amid uncertainty about US president Donald Trump's tariffs. Shares in Walmart (WMT) slid after it released a set of mixed quarterly results earlier in May, beating earnings per share estimates but missing revenue expectations. In addition, the retailer also signalled price hikes would be in store due to Trump's tariffs. Walmart (WMT) CEO Doug McMillon said: "We will do our best to keep our prices as low as possible, but given the magnitude of the tariffs, even at the reduced levels announced this week, we aren't able to absorb all the pressure given the reality of narrow retail margins." Stocks: Create your watchlist and portfolio He added on an earnings call that tariffs had already led to price increases in April and May. McMillon said the "reset of costs" will continue throughout the year, adding for an "imported item, you pay the tariff at the time it comes through customs ... even if the tariff rate comes down later, the cost has been elevated." Investors will be looking at Costco's (COST) to see if the wholesale retailer offers any commentary on tariffs. Shares in Costco tumbled after the release of its second quarter earnings in March. The stock has since rebounded but is up just 11% year-to-date. Adjusted earnings per share of $4.02 were below Bloomberg consensus estimates of $4.11, though revenue of $63.72bn came in slightly ahead of expectations of $63.01bn. In its most recent sales figures, released earlier in May, the retailer reported net sales of $21.18bn for the month of April, which was up 7% on the same period last year. Data released on Friday by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that retail sales were estimated to have risen by 1.2% last month, which was the sunniest April on record. "With the unusually warm spring weather sending homeowners into a craze of refreshing homes and gardens, it bodes better, in the short term, for B&Q owner Kingfisher (KGF.L)," said Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown. "In April, DIY sales saw a significant increase, with consumer spending boosted for outdoor related products, in particular." "Also, a surge in property completions due to the end of the stamp duty holiday is likely to have led to higher sales of products used in renovations," she added. Read more: UK 'bargain' stocks that have outperformed the market long-term However, she said that "problem is that the expected uplift could just be a flash in the pan for Kingfisher (KGF.L), rather than the start of a more sustained increase in sales." Streeter pointed out that the last financial year had proved "highly difficult" for Kingfisher (KGF.L), with it posting a 35% drop in pre-tax profit to £307m ($414m). Sales were also slightly lower for the year, dipping 1.5% to £12.8bn. "Although there is more strength in its digital operations and trade business in the UK, other markets are problematic," she said. "In France, consumer confidence has fallen to a three-month low, which won't help efforts to turn around its struggling Castorama chain." In its full-year results in March, Kingfisher (KGF.L) guided to adjusted pre-tax profit of £480m to £540m. "With some fears about the economic outlook lifting, investors will be hoping Kingfisher (KGF.L) might be able to unveil an improved outlook for the rest of the year for the group, but the signs right now are not super-positive," said Streeter. Monday 26 May Meituan ( Tuesday 27 May Xiaomi ( Soitec ( Auto Zone (AZO) Wednesday 28 May C & C (CCR.L) S4 Capital (SFOR.L) Agilent (A) HP Inc (HPQ) Dick's Sporting Goods (DKS) Elf Beauty (ELF) Nordstrom (JWN) Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) Macy's (M) Guess? Inc. (GES) Thursday 29 May Auto Trader (AUTO.L) Helios Underwriting (HUW.L) Braemar (BMS.L) Hollywood Bowl (BOWL.L) Dell Technologies (DELL) Grab Holdings (GRAB) Ulta Beauty (ULTA) Gap Inc (GAP) Bath & Body Works (BBWI) Foot Locker (FL) Kohls Corp (KSS) Marvell (MRVL) Lululemon Athletica (LULU) Cooper (COO) Hormel Foods (HRL) American Eagle (AEO) Friday 30 May Frontline (FRO) You can read Yahoo Finance's full calendar here. Read more: What are Trump's guests getting from $148m crypto dinner? Best credit card deals of the week, 21 May Rachel Reeves rules out cutting ISA limit but remains vague on cash savings
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Stocks to watch next week: Nvidia, Salesforce, Dell, Costco and Kingfisher
Developments around US trade relations and economic concerns continue to occupy much of investors' attention, but earnings from chipmaking giant Nvidia (NVDA), among others, will also be in the spotlight in the coming week. There will be a quieter start to the week with US markets closed on Monday for the Memorial Day holiday. UK markets will also be closed on Monday for the late May bank holiday. After traders return from the long weekend, the major focus will be on Nvidia (NVDA), which is due to release first quarter earnings on the Wednesday, as the last of the Magnificent 7 tech behemoths to report this earnings season. Salesforce (CRM), which provides customer relationship management (CRM) software, is another key tech name reporting on Wednesday. Computer maker Dell (DELL) is then set to report on Thursday, on the back of it unveiling new AI servers powered by Nvidia (NVDA) chips this week. In the retail sector, investors will be looking at wholesale retailer Costco's (COST) latest results, to help gauge US consumer sentiment amid economic uncertainty. On the London market, investors will be hoping that B&Q-owner Kingfisher (KGF.L) has benefitted from the UK's rise in retail sales, thanks to warmer weather in April. Here's more on what to look out for: Expectations have become increasingly high around Nvidia (NVDA) earnings, which was demonstrated in the market reaction to its full-year results in February. Shares fell after the release of the results, despite the chipmaker beating estimates on the top and bottom line. Revenue of $39.3bn (£29.1bn) beat estimates of £38.2bn and earnings per share of $0.89 were also ahead of forecasts of $0.84. In addition, the company said it expected to generate revenue of $43bn for the first quarter, better than the $42.3bn expected. However, Nvidia (NVDA) guided to gross profit margins of 70.6% to 71% in the first quarter, which would be down on the 73% it reported in the fourth quarter. Ahead of its latest earnings, Nvidia (NVDA) made a flurry of announcements around new technologies at the start of this week, with CEO Jensen Huang revealing more details at the Computex tech expo in Taipei, Taiwan. This included showcasing Nvidia's (NVDA) Isaac GR00T-Dreams, which the company described as a blueprint that helps generate large amounts of synthetic motion data that physical artificial intelligence (AI) developers can use to teach robots new behaviours. Read more: Five 'buy' rated European travel stocks In addition to its robotics capabilities, Nvidia (NVDA) unveiled its new NVLink Fusion offering, which allows customers to build custom servers using Nvidia's (NVDA) Grace CPU and a third-party AI chip paired with Nvidia's (NVDA) various server infrastructure offerings. At the event on Wednesday, Huang also called on Jensen Huang called on the Trump administration to ease Biden-era curbs on AI chip exports to China. Attention will now turn to Nvidia's (NVDA) first quarter results, which are due out on Wednesday, 28 May. AJ Bell's investment experts, Russ Mould, Danni Hewson and Dan Coatsworth said that Nvidia (NVDA) "has had the happy knack of beating estimates, which on this occasion will be benchmarked against the guidance given by chief executive Jensen Huang alongside the full-year results back in February. Just as important will be any steer or forecasts for the second quarter, which runs from May through to July." "Note that Nvidia (NVDA) has already signalled it may take a $5.5 billion one-off charge against its first-quarter results, relating to US bans on shipment of silicon chips to China," they said. "These costs relate to the H20 chipset and cover materials and penalties, although the company is likely to present this cost as extraordinary and strip it out of the published figures." In terms of guidance for the second quarter, they said that analyst consensus had a forecast of $45.4bn in sales and $1 for earnings per share. In addition to Nvidia's announcements, Microsoft (MSFT) and Alphabet-owned Google (GOOG, GOOGL) have also unveiled new tech features this week, including developments around AI agents. AI agents, which has emerged as one of biggest trends in tech, are semi- or fully autonomous pieces of AI software that can perform certain tasks for users. Salesforce (CRM) is another player in this space, so investors will be keen to understand the take-up of its technology, when it reports first quarter earnings on Wednesday. Its platform Agentforce allows companies to build and customise AI agents to help automate certain functions for customer service. In its full-year results in February, Salesforce (CRM) guided to total revenue of $9.71bn to $9.76bn for the first quarter, which would represent 6% to 7% growth year-on-year. Diluted earnings per share are expected to come in at between $1.49 and $1.51 for the quarter. For the year, Salesforce (CRM) has guided to revenue of $40.5bn to $40.9bn, which would be up 7% to 9% on its 2025 fiscal year. Diluted earnings per share for the 2026 fiscal year are expected to be in the range of $6.95 and $7.03. Read more: Stocks that are trending today Aarin Chiekrie, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said this latest set of results follow a year of "modest revenue growth". "Having spent the past year or two rightsizing the business, costs are in a much better place, and both profits and cash flows are feeling the benefits," he said. "While this was a necessary step, the focus now shifts back to driving top-line growth." Chiekrie said that revenue growth guidance for the first quarter was "softer than markets were hoping for at the time." "This reflects a tricky macroenvironment where businesses are still being selective of their software spending," he said. "Missing this target range next week would likely weigh heavily on investor sentiment." "Investors were excited to hear Salesforce's (CRM) AI platform, Agentforce, gained early momentum late last year with over 3,000 paid AI deals," Chiekrie added. "But with around 150,000 customers, these deals aren't dial movers just yet. Some analysts think it's just a matter of time, and markets are keen to hear whether the positive momentum has continued into the new year." Computer maker Dell (DELL) also hosted its own tech event this past week, which came with it sharing details of its collaboration with Nvidia. On Monday, Dell unveiled new AI servers, powered by Nvidia's (NVDA) Blackwell Ultra chips. At the Dell Technologies (DELL) World 2025 event, the company's CEO Michael Dell and Nvidia's (NVDA) Huang talked about a range of new offerings as part of its Dell AI Factory ecosystem, which together with the chipmaker, is aimed at making AI accessible to business of all sizes. Dell (DELL) said he envisioned a future where AI becomes "as essential as electricity" and that it could unlock an estimated $15tn in global economic value by 2030. Read more: More interest rate cuts in doubt after surprise inflation surge In terms of company performance, Dell (DELL) reported mixed fourth quarter results in February. Revenue of $23.93bn fell short of estimates of $24.65bn, but adjusted earnings per share of $2.68 beat analyst forecasts of $2.53. For the first quarter, Dell (DELL) also issued weaker-than-expected revenue guidance, forecasting sales forecasting sales between $22.5bn and $23.5bn, slightly missing the Street's expectations of $23.55bn. Shares in Dell (DELL) declined following the release of the results and have since recovered but the stock is still trading nearly 3% in the red year-to-date. Earnings from major US retailers are being closely watched, to help understand consumer behaviour, as concerns about the economy persist amid uncertainty about US president Donald Trump's tariffs. Shares in Walmart (WMT) slid after it released a set of mixed quarterly results earlier in May, beating earnings per share estimates but missing revenue expectations. In addition, the retailer also signalled price hikes would be in store due to Trump's tariffs. Walmart (WMT) CEO Doug McMillon said: "We will do our best to keep our prices as low as possible, but given the magnitude of the tariffs, even at the reduced levels announced this week, we aren't able to absorb all the pressure given the reality of narrow retail margins." Stocks: Create your watchlist and portfolio He added on an earnings call that tariffs had already led to price increases in April and May. McMillon said the "reset of costs" will continue throughout the year, adding for an "imported item, you pay the tariff at the time it comes through customs ... even if the tariff rate comes down later, the cost has been elevated." Investors will be looking at Costco's (COST) to see if the wholesale retailer offers any commentary on tariffs. Shares in Costco tumbled after the release of its second quarter earnings in March. The stock has since rebounded but is up just 11% year-to-date. Adjusted earnings per share of $4.02 were below Bloomberg consensus estimates of $4.11, though revenue of $63.72bn came in slightly ahead of expectations of $63.01bn. In its most recent sales figures, released earlier in May, the retailer reported net sales of $21.18bn for the month of April, which was up 7% on the same period last year. Data released on Friday by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that retail sales were estimated to have risen by 1.2% last month, which was the sunniest April on record. "With the unusually warm spring weather sending homeowners into a craze of refreshing homes and gardens, it bodes better, in the short term, for B&Q owner Kingfisher (KGF.L)," said Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown. "In April, DIY sales saw a significant increase, with consumer spending boosted for outdoor related products, in particular." "Also, a surge in property completions due to the end of the stamp duty holiday is likely to have led to higher sales of products used in renovations," she added. Read more: UK 'bargain' stocks that have outperformed the market long-term However, she said that "problem is that the expected uplift could just be a flash in the pan for Kingfisher (KGF.L), rather than the start of a more sustained increase in sales." Streeter pointed out that the last financial year had proved "highly difficult" for Kingfisher (KGF.L), with it posting a 35% drop in pre-tax profit to £307m ($414m). Sales were also slightly lower for the year, dipping 1.5% to £12.8bn. "Although there is more strength in its digital operations and trade business in the UK, other markets are problematic," she said. "In France, consumer confidence has fallen to a three-month low, which won't help efforts to turn around its struggling Castorama chain." In its full-year results in March, Kingfisher (KGF.L) guided to adjusted pre-tax profit of £480m to £540m. "With some fears about the economic outlook lifting, investors will be hoping Kingfisher (KGF.L) might be able to unveil an improved outlook for the rest of the year for the group, but the signs right now are not super-positive," said Streeter. Monday 26 May Meituan ( Tuesday 27 May Xiaomi ( Soitec ( Auto Zone (AZO) Wednesday 28 May C & C (CCR.L) S4 Capital (SFOR.L) Agilent (A) HP Inc (HPQ) Dick's Sporting Goods (DKS) Elf Beauty (ELF) Nordstrom (JWN) Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) Macy's (M) Guess? Inc. (GES) Thursday 29 May Auto Trader (AUTO.L) Helios Underwriting (HUW.L) Braemar (BMS.L) Hollywood Bowl (BOWL.L) Dell Technologies (DELL) Grab Holdings (GRAB) Ulta Beauty (ULTA) Gap Inc (GAP) Bath & Body Works (BBWI) Foot Locker (FL) Kohls Corp (KSS) Marvell (MRVL) Lululemon Athletica (LULU) Cooper (COO) Hormel Foods (HRL) American Eagle (AEO) Friday 30 May Frontline (FRO) You can read Yahoo Finance's full calendar here. Read more: What are Trump's guests getting from $148m crypto dinner? Best credit card deals of the week, 21 May Rachel Reeves rules out cutting ISA limit but remains vague on cash savingsSign in to access your portfolio
Express Tribune
19-05-2025
- Business
- Express Tribune
Computex Taipei 2025: NVIDIA goes all-in on AI robotics
Nvidia came out swinging at Computex Taipei 2025 on Monday, unveiling a futuristic lineup of humanoid robotics tools and customizable AI server infrastructure aimed at accelerating the global AI boom. At the heart of the announcements was Nvidia Isaac GR00T-Dreams, a powerful new platform that helps developers generate vast training datasets to teach humanoid robots how to function and adapt in dynamic environments. Jensen just announced NVIDIA's Isaac GR00T N1.5 and GR00T-Dreams blueprint at COMPUTEX 2025: ⦿ Isaac GR00T N1.5 is the first update to NVIDIA's open, generalized, fully customizable foundation model for humanoid reasoning and skills. ⦿ 'Human demonstrations aren't scalable —… — The Humanoid Hub (@TheHumanoidHub) May 19, 2025 The move is a major step in what CEO Jensen Huang has called 'the next trillion-dollar industry'—physical AI. Nvidia is now staking its claim beyond just chips, focusing on the software and infrastructure to power a new generation of intelligent machines, both in industrial settings and, eventually, in homes. Also grabbing headlines was the debut of NVLink Fusion, a next-gen server architecture allowing customers to mix and match Nvidia's Grace CPU with third-party AI chips, or integrate Nvidia's GPUs with custom CPUs. Electricity. The Internet. Now it's time for another major technology, #AI, to sweep the globe. NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang took the stage at a packed Taipei Music Center Monday to kick off #COMPUTEX2025, captivating the audience of more than 4,000 with a vision for a… — NVIDIA (@nvidia) May 19, 2025 The goal: give hyperscalers and enterprises more flexibility in designing AI-first data centers. 'Using NVLink Fusion, hyperscalers can work with the NVIDIA partner ecosystem to integrate NVIDIA rack-scale solutions for seamless deployment in data center infrastructure,' the company said in a statement. Adding to the firepower, Nvidia announced RTX Pro Blackwell servers powered by its Blackwell Server Edition GPUs. These new systems are designed to handle 'virtually every enterprise workload,' from engineering simulations to large-scale agentic AI deployments. #NVIDIA just unveiled a beast at #Computex: the RTX PRO Server. This next-gen enterprise AI and industrial computing platform is built for real-time digital twin simulation and ultra-high-performance workloads.#RTXProServer #AIInfrastructure #DigitalTwins #Computex2025 — PCMag (@PCMag) May 19, 2025 To extend access to AI development tools globally, Nvidia launched DGX Cloud Lepton, a cloud-based AI processing platform built in collaboration with CoreWeave, Foxconn, SoftBank, and others. The system will tap into a global GPU cloud network, enabling customers to build and roll out AI software at scale. The announcements land at a pivotal time for Nvidia, fresh off a market boost following the US government's reversal on proposed export restrictions. The company is also set to deliver hundreds of thousands of AI processors to Saudi-backed startup Humain over the next five years, as revealed during President Trump's visit to the Kingdom. #Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (#黄仁勋) announced that the company would be opening up an office in Taiwan, dubbed "Nvidia Constellation."#COMPUTEX2025 — Ifeng News (@IFENG__official) May 19, 2025 Despite a rocky few months on the stock market—linked to export controls, data center lease rumors, and semiconductor tariff fears—Nvidia's long-term trajectory appears more AI-fueled than ever. Shares are still up 43% over the past year, even as short-term volatility continues. From cloud to humanoids, Nvidia is clearly signaling that the future isn't just artificial intelligence—it's artificially embodied.
Techday NZ
19-05-2025
- Business
- Techday NZ
NVIDIA unveils new Isaac GR00T tools powering robot evolution
NVIDIA has introduced updated cloud-to-robot computing platforms designed to support humanoid robot development using new data generation blueprints, simulation frameworks, and powerful workstation and server hardware. NVIDIA has announced NVIDIA Isaac GR00T N1.5, the first update to its open, customisable foundation model for humanoid reasoning and skills. In addition, the company unveiled Isaac GR00T-Dreams, a new synthetic motion data generation blueprint, and expanded its NVIDIA Blackwell systems portfolio to accelerate research, simulation, and deployment in the robotics industry. A range of robotics companies, including Agility Robotics, Boston Dynamics, Fourier, Foxlink, Galbot, Mentee Robotics, NEURA Robotics, General Robotics, Skild AI and XPENG Robotics, have adopted NVIDIA's Isaac platform technologies to progress humanoid robot development. Jensen Huang, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of NVIDIA, stated, "Physical AI and robotics will bring about the next industrial revolution. From AI brains for robots to simulated worlds to practice in or AI supercomputers for training foundation models, NVIDIA provides building blocks for every stage of the robotics development journey." NVIDIA Isaac GR00T-Dreams, demonstrated by Huang, is positioned as a blueprint for generating synthetic motion data known as neural trajectories. This data supports physical AI developers in teaching robots new behaviours and in improving adaptation to various environments. The Isaac GR00T-Dreams workflow involves the post-training of Cosmos Predict world foundation models (WFMs) for robots. Developers can use a single image as input, and GR00T-Dreams will output videos of the robot executing new tasks in novel environments. The system then extracts action tokens—small, processed data units—utilised to teach robots how to perform these tasks. This blueprint complements NVIDIA's previously released Isaac GR00T-Mimic, which uses the NVIDIA Omniverse and Cosmos platforms to augment existing data sets. By contrast, GR00T-Dreams generates fresh synthetic data, enabling further enrichment of robot training datasets. NVIDIA Research applied the GR00T-Dreams blueprint to quickly develop GR00T N1.5, updating its original model in 36 hours, compared to the nearly three months typically required for manual human data collection. The updated GR00T N1.5 model is capable of more effectively adapting to new workspaces and recognising objects based on user instructions. NVIDIA reports significant improvements in the model's success rate when performing common material handling and manufacturing tasks, such as sorting and storing objects. Early adopters of the GR00T N models include AeiRobot, Foxlink, Lightwheel and NEURA Robotics. These organisations are pursuing varied applications: AeiRobot is using the models to enable its ALICE4 robot to follow natural language instructions and perform complex pick-and-place tasks in industrial settings, while Foxlink Group is employing the models to enhance industrial robot manipulator efficiency. Lightwheel focuses on validating synthetic data for streamlined humanoid deployment in factories, and NEURA Robotics is evaluating the models to accelerate household automation system development. NVIDIA has also released additional simulation and data generation frameworks intended to bridge the gap in data quantity and mitigate the costs and risks associated with real-world robot testing. These developments include NVIDIA Cosmos Reason, a new world foundation model that uses chain-of-thought reasoning to curate higher-quality synthetic data for training physical AI models, and Cosmos Predict 2, which offers enhancements for world generation and reduced hallucination and will be available soon. Other new tools include Isaac GR00T-Mimic for generating vast quantities of synthetic motion trajectories using few human demonstrations, an open-source physical AI dataset incorporating 24,000 high-quality humanoid robot motion trajectories, and upcoming availability of Isaac Sim 5.0 and Isaac Lab 2.2 on open platforms such as GitHub. These simulation frameworks aim to make development pipelines more efficient and scalable. Various companies are already utilising these simulation tools and blueprints. Foxconn and Foxlink use GR00T-Mimic for synthetic motion generation, while Agility Robotics, Boston Dynamics, Fourier, Mentee Robotics, NEURA Robotics and XPENG Robotics train their robots with Isaac Sim and Isaac Lab. Skild AI develops general robot intelligence with these frameworks, and General Robotics integrates them into its platform. Regarding hardware, international system manufacturers have announced new RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell workstations and servers built with NVIDIA technology. These platforms are intended for robot developers to handle training, data generation, robot learning, and simulation workloads on a single architecture. Providers such as Cisco, Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Lenovo and Supermicro offer NVIDIA RTX PRO-powered servers, with Dell Technologies, HPI and Lenovo supplying RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell workstations as well. Developers with greater computational needs can access NVIDIA Blackwell systems including the GB200 NVL72, which is made available through NVIDIA DGX Cloud and cloud partners, enabling up to 18 times higher data processing performance for large-scale projects. NVIDIA plans to enable deployment of robot foundation models to its Jetson Thor platform, which will support accelerated on-robot inference and runtime performance.
