Nvidia kicks off GTC 2026 with focus on AI inference

Nvidia has commenced its annual GTC developer conference in San Jose, California. The four-day event, which runs from March 16 to March 19, begins with a keynote address by CEO Jensen Huang. GTC, which stands for GPU Technology Conference, is Nvidia’s annual developer conference and serves as the company’s primary venue to announce new products, showcase partnerships, and outline its computing strategy. The broader event is set to focus on the future of artificial intelligence across multiple industries, including healthcare, robotics, and autonomous vehicles.

On the software side, Nvidia is rumored to release NemoClaw, an open-source platform for enterprise AI agents. AI agents are software programs that can carry out multistep tasks autonomously. According to original reporting by Wired, this platform would allow businesses to build and deploy these agents, positioning Nvidia to compete with similar offerings from competitors like OpenAI. On the hardware side, the company is also rumored to release a new chip designed to accelerate AI inference. AI inference is the process by which an artificial intelligence model applies what it has learned to generate responses or make decisions, as opposed to the initial training process. Faster and cheaper inference is widely viewed as a key bottleneck to scaling AI applications.

The rumored hardware release represents Nvidia’s attempt to expand its market presence into the highly competitive inference sector. While Nvidia currently commands an estimated 80% share of the AI training market, competition in the inference market is intensifying. Competitors such as Google and Amazon are actively building chips for inference tasks, which require less computing power than training but are critical for scaling AI applications broadly.

Market analysts are also looking for updates regarding Nvidia’s relationship with Groq, an inference technology company. Nvidia reportedly paid $20 billion late last year to license Groq’s technology. Kevin Cook, a senior equity strategist at Zacks Investment Research, noted that attendees are eager to see how Nvidia plans to utilize this partnership. As part of the licensing agreement, Groq founder Jonathan Ross, president Sunny Madra, and other members of the Groq team agreed to join Nvidia to help scale and advance the licensed technology.

Why it matters

Nvidia’s GTC conference serves as the primary venue for the company to announce new products and strategy. The expected announcements regarding AI agent software and inference chips signal Nvidia’s attempt to expand its market dominance from AI training into the inference sector.