GTC 2026 in San Jose will gather over 30,000 industry leaders and developers to showcase breakthroughs across the full AI stack, from infrastructure and chips to models and real-world applications.
On March 3, 2026, NVIDIA announced that its flagship AI conference, GTC 2026, will take place from March 16–19 in San Jose. The event is expected to draw more than 30,000 participants from over 190 countries, including developers, researchers, executives and AI-focused enterprises, all gathering to examine how artificial intelligence is evolving into foundational global infrastructure.
According to Jensen Huang, NVIDIA’s founder and CEO, AI has moved beyond being a standalone breakthrough and is now becoming a core layer of modern industry. He emphasized that organizations and nations alike are investing across the full technology stack — from energy systems and silicon to infrastructure, models and applications — with AI at the center.
Keynote and Industry Direction
Huang’s keynote address will be delivered at SAP Center on March 16 at 11 a.m. PT and livestreamed globally. He is expected to outline NVIDIA’s latest innovations spanning accelerated computing platforms, AI factories, open foundation models, agentic systems and physical AI. The keynote will set the tone for industry priorities in the year ahead.
Exploring the Five Layers of AI
At GTC 2026, NVIDIA frames AI as a “five-layer stack” encompassing energy, chips, infrastructure, models and applications. Conference sessions and demonstrations will highlight how each layer has developed its own ecosystem of partners, tools and talent — and how alignment across these layers is driving one of the largest technology infrastructure expansions in history.
More Than 1,000 Technical Sessions
The conference agenda includes over 1,000 sessions covering AI factories, large-scale inference, robotics, digital twins, scientific computing, quantum research and enterprise AI deployments. These discussions will focus not only on building and optimizing individual technologies but also on integrating them into production-scale environments.
Huang will also participate in a panel conversation with leaders from prominent AI labs and venture firms to discuss frontier open models and the next phase of AI innovation.
Training, Certification and Workforce Development
Developers and engineers attending GTC will have access to nine full-day workshops and more than 60 hands-on labs, along with onsite certification exams. Additional self-paced courses and educator programs are designed to help expand the skilled workforce required to support rapidly growing AI infrastructure.
Startups and Investment Ecosystem
More than 240 startups from NVIDIA’s Inception program are scheduled to showcase technologies across generative AI, robotics, physical AI and enterprise applications. Dedicated startup programming and investor engagement sessions — including participation from NVentures — aim to foster connections between founders and capital providers building across the AI stack.
Developer and Research Community
GTC will offer technical deep dives led by NVIDIA engineers and ecosystem partners. Sessions focused on CUDA, large-scale model training, inference optimization and deployment across cloud, edge and sovereign environments will provide practical guidance for production AI systems.
In addition, more than 150 research posters from global institutions will present advances in model design, robotics, systems architecture and emerging AI applications.
AI Across Industries
During the four-day event, downtown San Jose will transform into an AI-focused campus spanning multiple venues. Public programming, including a community day and student-focused sessions, aims to broaden access and engagement.
Representatives from major technology companies and research organizations — such as Adobe, Google DeepMind, IBM Research, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Tesla and Uber Technologies — are expected to share how AI is driving transformation across sectors ranging from manufacturing and healthcare to transportation and energy.
Investor Engagement
NVIDIA will also host a live Q&A session for financial analysts and investors on March 17 at 9 a.m. PT, accessible through its investor relations platform.
With GTC 2026, NVIDIA reinforces its role at the forefront of the AI era, positioning the conference as a global forum where technological breakthroughs, infrastructure strategy and ecosystem collaboration converge to shape the next stage of artificial intelligence.