@Mark Ollig
This year’s Consumer Electronics Show, or CES, hosted Jan. 6 to 9 in Las Vegas, NV, highlighted a shift in artificial intelligence (AI) away from purely digital applications.
AI technology is moving inside machines designed to operate in the physical world.
Much of the attention focused on the computing platforms and processors that power physical AI systems, including robots, vehicles, and industrial equipment.
NVIDIA, based in Santa Clara, CA, develops chips and software for high-end computing used in AI, scientific research, and gaming.
At CES, the company introduced Rubin, a new computing platform designed to support large-scale robotics, automation, and other real-world AI systems.
Named after astronomer Vera Florence Cooper Rubin (1928 to 2016), the platform consists of six tightly integrated chips, including the Vera central processing unit (CPU), which uses 88 custom processor cores.
NVIDIA said Rubin is designed to reduce the time and cost required to train and run advanced AI systems, addressing the rapidly growing demand for computing power.
The Rubin platform uses High Bandwidth Memory 4 (HBM4), delivering up to 22 terabytes per second of memory bandwidth.
Boston Dynamics used CES to unveil a fully electric, production-oriented version of its Atlas robot.
Atlas stands about 6.2 feet tall, has a reach of roughly 7.5 feet, can lift up to 110 pounds, and is designed for industrial environments.
LG Electronics, a South Korean electronics corporation, introduced the CLOiD humanoid home robot at CES this year.
The name combines LG’s CLOi brand with the letter D for dynamic and the suffix -oid for humanoid.
The human-like torso wheeled robot features articulated arms and five-fingered hands that independently mimic human dexterity.
Powered by vision-based physical AI, CLOiD navigates over household surfaces and can handle chores, such as folding laundry.
It can also open the refrigerator, identify various drinks or other items, and bring the correct one as requested by the user.
Unitree Robotics, based in China, known for its quadruped robots, showcased its humanoid lineup at CES 2026.
It featured their G1 model performing dance and boxing routines to demonstrate its advanced motor control.
The G1 employs proprietary AI and trained through imitation and reinforcement learning to maintain balance and perform complex movements.
Intel, the American technology company based in Santa Clara, unveiled its Core Ultra Series 3 processors, codenamed Panther Lake, which are the first consumer chips made with the Intel 18A manufacturing process.
The platform features a dedicated neural processing unit (NPU) that can perform up to 50 trillion operations per second (TOPS).
Combined with the CPU and integrated GPU, the total platform performance can reach 180 TOPS, enabling advanced capabilities like real-time voice processing and high-fidelity image generation, while powering next-generation AI computing applications.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), based in Santa Clara, showcased its Ryzen AI Max+ processor.
This processor supports up to 128 gigabytes of unified memory, enabling the CPU and GPU to share it and improving performance for compute-intensive applications.
AMD said some Ryzen AI laptop systems are expected to start at $499.
Qualcomm, an American technology corporation headquartered in San Diego, CA, introduced the Snapdragon X2 Plus processor, designed for lower-cost laptops.
The company said the chip can handle up to 80 trillion operations per second while using less power than earlier designs.
Wearable devices were also featured across the CES 2026 show floor.
Razer, a gaming hardware and software company based in Irvine, CA, displayed concept products such as Project AVA, a desktop companion with a holographic avatar for user interaction.
It also showed Project Motoko, a concept wireless headset that uses two forward-facing cameras to capture what the wearer sees, supporting on-device assistance features and research into machine vision and robotics.
Nirva AI Jewelry, a wearable technology company headquartered in San Francisco, CA, showed off a device that aims to spot activity patterns by listening to and tracking the wearer’s movement.
Lenovo, a global technology company incorporated in Hong Kong with headquarters in Beijing and North Carolina, displayed concept smart glasses designed to provide real-time translation and visual recognition.
In transportation and industrial technology, NVIDIA introduced Alpamayo, an AI model and development stack intended to support autonomous driving systems.
NVIDIA said the technology will first appear in the Mercedes-Benz CLA.
Ford Motor Co. plans to roll out a new “in-app helper” early this year through the Ford and Lincoln smartphone apps, reaching about eight million existing customers.
Ford says it will move into vehicle dashboards in 2027.
The app will pull from vehicle data and owner information to answer questions about tire pressure, oil life, and towing capacity.
Ford’s current BlueCruise is a level two hands-free driving feature that still requires the driver to watch the road.
Ford says its 2028 update is aimed at level three capability, allowing the driver to look away at times on approved highways under specific conditions.
Caterpillar Inc. introduced a suite of industrial tools developed in collaboration with NVIDIA.
The Cat AI Assistant allows equipment operators to interact directly with machinery to diagnose issues, plan maintenance, and locate replacement parts.
Caterpillar said the system uses real-time data from the equipment itself.
This year’s CES showcased how AI is moving beyond computing screens and data servers into robots, vehicles, and machines built to perform real-world work in a physical AI environment.
