NVIDIA GTC 2026: What to Expect from the Biggest AI Conference of the Year

Every March, San Jose becomes a focal point for the artificial intelligence community. This year, NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang will deliver a keynote address on Monday, March 16, at 11 a.m. PT at the SAP Center, welcoming an expected 30,000 attendees arriving from 190 countries. The conference spans from March 16-19, 2026.

Keynote and Conference Overview

Huang’s keynote will provide a comprehensive overview of NVIDIA’s advancements across the entire AI stack – from chips and software to models and applications. The event features over 700 sessions across ten venues in downtown San Jose. For those unable to attend in person, the keynote will be livestreamed for free on nvidia.com.

Pregame and Early Highlights

The conference kicks off with a pre-keynote session at 8 a.m. PT on Monday, featuring CEOs from Perplexity, LangChain, Mistral, Skild AI, and OpenEvidence. On Wednesday, March 18, at 12:30 p.m. PT, Huang will moderate a panel discussion on open models with Harrison Chase, cofounder and CEO of LangChain, and leaders from A16Z, AI2, Cursor, and Thinking Machines Lab. This panel will explore the current state of open models in comparison to closed-source alternatives and their implications for developers.

Industry Insights and Partnerships

Tuesday’s sessions include a discussion with Dario Gil, Undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Energy, and Ian Buck, NVIDIA Vice President of Hyperscale and High-Performance Computing, focusing on the role of AI in climate and energy research. Later that day, Universal Music Group chairman and CEO Sir Lucian Grainge will join NVIDIA’s Richard Kerris to discuss the intersection of music and AI. NVIDIA recently entered a nonexclusive agreement with Groq to utilize their inferencing technologies, and Groq’s founder and leaders have joined NVIDIA, signaling a focus on efficient AI inference as reported by Yahoo Finance.

Beyond the Main Stage

GTC offers a variety of opportunities beyond the main keynotes and sessions. These include:

• 150 researcher posters covering robotics, model innovation, and systems architecture.
• Seventy-plus hands-on training labs, each lasting an hour and 45 minutes.
• Onsite certification exams available at no extra cost.
• A day market at Cesar Chavez Park from 11 a.m. To 2 p.m., and a night market until 9 p.m.

Livestream and Social Engagement

The GTC Developer Community Livestream will provide real-time coverage of show floor demos and interviews throughout the week. Attendees are encouraged to utilize the hashtag #ShowMeGTC on social media and in the YouTube chat to suggest content for the livestream.

Registration and Discount

Registration for NVIDIA GTC 2026 is available at nvidia.com/gtc. A 20% discount is available using the code GTC26-20.