Jensen Huang sends in the robot ducks to sell Nvidia's AI-everywhere vision

Cute robots stole the show at Nvidia's GTC keynote in Berlin, where Jensen Huang pitched a future powered by AI agents – and, naturally, plenty of his company's hardware. The Nvidia chief remained his usual ebullient self despite environmental protesters interrupting his presentation at Berlin's tent-shaped Tempodrom. "Why don't you clean up your act?" they demanded, holding up banners that partially obscured the presentation screen behind Huang. "All important issues, but let me get through my keynote," he joked, adding: "I'll talk to you guys later," as security swiftly removed them. Huang was discussing Vera Rubin systems before unveiling DSX POD, a reference design for factory-built, containerized AI infrastructure . DSX POD combines seven liquid-cooled Vera Rubin compute racks using Nvidia's Spectrum-X networking. Partners will cable, integrate, and test the systems in modular containers before delivery, with availability expected in early 2027. Nvidia claims deployment could shrink from six months to as little as 14 days at a prepared site. That excludes the not insignificant matter of getting power, connectivity, and other site infrastructure ready first. He was keen to add that Vera Rubin systems are designed for closed-loop liquid cooling with coolant temperatures up to 45°C, while outdoor dry coolers release heat into the air without needing to evaporate water. "At 2 gigawatts, DSX can save 54 million litres of water a day," Huang claimed, perhaps thinking of those environmental protesters. Yet much of the leather-jacketed leader's attention was focused on physical AI: robots, autonomous vehicles, and other machinery Nvidia hopes to supply with its hardware and software. The Microducks from Pollen Robotics are small, two-legged robots with cameras for faces. Huang interacted with them on stage, getting them to lie down and roll over by voice command, and the little robots all beeped back at him in response. The robo ducks demonstrated a workflow in which AI was trained in the cloud, evaluated on an Nvidia RTX Spark PC, then deployed on the robots. Huang also unveiled Agile ONE SN, a humanoid robot reference platform from German robotics startup Agile Robots, based on Nvidia's Isaac GR00T technology and a Jetson Thor compute module. Scheduled for early 2027, the platform is intended to give robotics researchers and developers a ready-made system for developing and testing capabilities. "This is going to be the next major industry, the next great …