Nvidia Partners with Unitree to Launch Integrated Humanoid Robot Platform

Jensen Huang, chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp., speaks at the Nvidia GTC conference on the sidelines of Computex 2026 in Taipei, Taiwan, on Monday, June 1, 2026.

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Nvidia has selected Chinese humanoid‑robot maker Unitree for the first robotics system the U.S. chipmaker is selling to researchers at institutions such as Stanford and ETH Zurich, the company announced Monday.

The system pairs Unitree’s nearly six‑foot‑tall H2 humanoid robot with Nvidia’s Jetson Thor platform, which incorporates the company’s latest Blackwell GPU to deliver on‑device artificial‑intelligence capabilities.

Nvidia’s humanoid‑focused AI models, known as Isaac GR00T, along with its simulation tools, are included in the new robot‑testing package, according to a press release. The robot also features mechanical hands produced by Singapore‑based Sharpa. PitchBook lists Qiming Venture Partners among Unitree’s investors.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has predicted that “physical AI” could become a market worth tens of trillions of dollars. He told investors last month that he expects rapid growth in the robotics segment over the next five years.

“Today we’re announcing the Nvidia Isaac Root, a reference humanoid robot, fully integrated, with 25 degrees of freedom in each hand made by Sharpa, 31 degrees of freedom overall, six feet tall and 150 pounds—just like me,” Huang said in a keynote speech in Taipei.

Visitors examine a Unitree H2 humanoid during its public debut at a robot show in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025.

“This platform runs on the new Thor and our entire software stack, data‑generation stack, simulation stack, and runtime, all integrated into a robot designed for everyone to use,” he added.

“We built this for higher‑education and university researchers, because building something like this is insanely hard to do on your own.”

The new system also expands Nvidia’s presence in robotics software development, leveraging the chipmaker’s AI‑computing expertise and its widely used CUDA platform.

Unitree’s global market

The announcement comes as Unitree seeks to raise 4.2 billion yuan ($620 million) through a listing on Shanghai’s STAR board, with the exchange set to review the IPO application on Monday.

Unitree disclosed that more than 40 % of its revenue already comes from markets outside China.

The H2 Plus, an upgraded version of the H2 humanoid, will be available in October, and “anyone can buy it,” said Rev Lebaredian, vice president of physical‑AI simulation at Nvidia.

He described the move as “taking frontier humanoid research out of the hands of only the world’s largest tech companies and AI unicorns, and putting it within reach of every lab.”

At least four research institutions have already committed to using the H2 Plus, the press release said, including Ai2 in Seattle, ETH Zurich in Switzerland, the Stanford Robotics Center, and UC San Diego’s Advanced Robotics and Controls Laboratory. No China‑based research arms were listed.

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