Nvidia GTC 2026 keynote live blog — Jensen Huang takes the stage in San Jose to show the 'future of technology'
A lot of AI announcements, and maybe a thing or two for consumers.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is moments away from taking the stage at the SAP Center in San Jose, California to deliver the GTC 2026 keynote. Tom's Hardware Editor-in-Chief Paul Alcorn and Senior GPU Analyst Jeffrey Kampman are on the ground in San Jose, and we'll be delivering you updates from the keynote floor in real-time. The keynote begins at 11am PT, and it's expected to run two hours.
As with any Nvidia event these days, we expect to hear a lot about AI advancements, as Nvidia continues to run circles around the tech industry in the enterprise space. We could see some announcements on the consumer front, as well, but if you're expecting to see new GeForce graphics cards, you might be leave disappointed.
How to Watch the GTC 2026 Keynote
Nvidia's GTC 2026 keynote starts at 11am PT / 2pm ET, and you can watch it directly through the embedded stream above. CEO Jensen Huang will present the keynote, and it's expected to last about two hours; though, as with any Nvidia keynote, things may run long.
'GeForce is Nvidia's greatest marketing campaign'
Jensen says that "GeForce is Nvidia's greatest marketing campaign." It's an interesting way to frame the conversation, and one that Nvidia has been trying to crack for the past few years. Jensen paints a picture of Nvidia creating the first programmable shader 25 years ago, which eventually led to CUDA, and used GeForce as a vehicle to drive adoption.
Pricing of Ampere in the cloud is going up
The prevalence of CUDA has accelerated what Nvidia calls a "flywheel." Nvidia attracts developers who develop on CUDA, which leads to more people adopting Nvidia hardware, and the lifecycle continues. Because of this, Jensen says the price of GPUs using the now-dated Ampere architecture has actually gone up in the cloud.
'We've been working on CUDA for 20 years'
CUDA is one of the major reasons Nvidia is in the position it's in today, and this GTC marks the 20th anniversary of CUDA. "The single hardest thing is to have built up our install base, we're in every cloud and computer company in every single industry," says Jensen.
The man of the hour is here: CEO Jensen Huang
Jensen Huang has taken the stage in a familiar leather jacket. Sorry folks, there's no special jacket this time around. Jensen is starting off the show thanking some of the people that hosted the preshow leading up to the keynote.
And we're off!
We may have started a few minutes late, but the keynote has officially begun. We begin with a short video about AI tokens and all the wonderful things (according to Nvidia) we've all done with them, from healthcare to space to construction.
That's... a lot of country music?
We're all sitting in surprise here at Tom's Hardware at the amount of country music playing before Jensen takes the stage. We're nearly a quarter past the top of the hour at this point and still waiting for the keynote to start. There's nothing wrong with country music, but rustic Americana and enterprise AI isn't a combo I'd normally expect.
Running a bit behind schedule
We're a few minutes past the top of the hour, and we're still waiting on the keynote to start. In the meantime, a quick reminder that you can watch along with us through the live stream above.
T-Minus 5 Minutes
Run to the bathroom, get your drink ready, and settle in. We're just a few minutes away from the start of GTC 2026. Jensen will probably start with a short history of Nvidia's role in AI, but we expect the announcements to rapid-fire out after that point. We're sat down in the SAP Center in San Jose and ready to dig in.
What to expect from GTC 2026
There's always room for surprises, especially at Nvidia's own GTC event, but there are a few key announcements we're focused in on:
- Intel x Nvidia partnership — Nvidia bought $5 billion in Intel stock last year, and at the time, announced that the two companies would be working together on custom x86 processors across both the data center and consumer PCs. The deal has apparently been decades in the making. It's not clear if we'll hear about consumer or enterprise chips, or both, but there's a good chance we'll hear something from the partnership.
- The 'future of real-time rendering' — Nvidia presented at GDC (not GTC) about neural rendering, but just a week later, the company is teasing that it will reveal the "future of real-time rendering" at GTC (not GDC). Maybe it's a new DLSS feature, maybe it's something completely new. We don't know, but Nvidia has already confirmed something is coming for gamers during the keynote.
- More on Vera Rubin — Nvidia officially launched its Vera Rubin NVL72 in January, and it started shipping samples to customers just weeks ago. These next-gen AI data center boards are on-track for the second half of the year, so we expect to hear a lot about them during the keynote.
- AI agents — Since the release of OpenClaw, the tech industry has been washed in talk of AI agents. Nvidia will talk about AI agents during the keynote, that much is almost guaranteed. We could see an announcement of "NemoClaw," which is an AI agent Nvidia is reportedly developing to compete with OpenClaw.
- Nvidia N1/N1X — Perhaps the biggest rumor around Nvidia over the past year has been the N1 and N1X, which are two SoCs reportedly being developed for the consumer market. Do we finally see a reveal at this year's GTC? Perhaps, but this is the last item on this list for a reason.
We're moments away from GTC 2026
Hello and welcome to Tom's Hardware's live blog for the GTC 2026 keynote. Jensen Huang is moments away from taking the stage. Myself, Jake Roach, will be tending the blog while our very own Paul Alcorn and Jeffrey Kampman are on the ground to cover all of the announcements in real-time.
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