Germany-based robotics firm Agile Robots reportedly plans to produce up to 2,000 humanoid robots next year through a fresh partnership with Nvidia, targeting universities and corporate research labs.

The collaboration was announced at Nvidia’s GTC conference in Berlin. Agile CEO Zhaopeng Chen told Reuters the pair are set to begin production of the Agile ONE S and ONE SN humanoid robot models by the end of 2026, expecting to manufacture between 1,000 and 2,000 units. Stanford University and ETH Zurich are among potential customers.

The Agile ONE SN, with the N standing for Nvidia to denote the chipmaker-specific configuration, combines Agile’s humanoid hardware with Nvidia’s Jetson Thor onboard computing platform and Isaac GR00T robotics AI model. It features five-fingered hands, cameras and other sensors to support dexterous manipulation and interaction with the physical environment.

Standing 1.4 metres tall and weighing around 40 kilograms, the robot is designed as a smaller alternative to full-sized humanoids. Nvidia said the robot intends to simplify the integration of hardware, simulation, training and deployment tools on a single platform, “cutting setup time from weeks to days”.

Spencer Huang, Nvidia’s product director for robotics, told Reuters the standardised configuration could save researchers two or three months of work procuring separately purchased components. “If we can bring researchers something that’s already 80% of the way there, it accelerates their development,” he said.

Nvidia said Agile’s ONE SN is scheduled to become available in early 2027, as competition intensifies among European humanoid developers.

ChatGPT moment
Alongside the partnership, the chipmaker also revealed its expanded robotics development platform, Nvidia Isaac, equipped with new tools for training and deploying AI-powered machines. The expanded platform includes Isaac OS, an open-source runtime framework, and Isaac Lab 3.0, a robot learning framework designed to train and refine robot skills. The company also introduced new reference workflows and simulation resources to speed up development.

“General-purpose robotics is advancing at extraordinary speed — the ChatGPT moment for robotics is fast approaching,” noted Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, adding the platform would give developers “the models, data, simulation tools and computing systems to bring physical AI to the world’s largest industries”.

The chipmaker added European robotics players including UK-based Humanoid, French start-up Hugging Face and Swedish firm ABB Robotics are applying its technologies including Nvidia Isaac to industrial autonomous machines.

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INTERVIEW: Nokia chief technology and AI officer Pallavi Mahajan and Nvidia SVP of telco Ronnie Vasishta told the Mobile World Live Podcast their AI-RAN partnership is showing tangible progress, as they announced close to 20 operators are lined up for lab and commercial trials of the technology.

In an exclusive interview to outline progress of their efforts, Vasishta and Mahajan highlighted the fact it had only been 12 months since the two companies announced a joint AI-RAN partnership, which included a $1 billion investment from Nvidia into the Finnish vendor.

A year on, today (21 October) at Nvidia’s GTC 2026 event in Berlin the duo announced almost 20 operators globally have committed to AI-RAN collaboration, including 10 from EMEA. Mahajan said these operators are at different stages, lined up for both lab and commercial trials.

In 2027 trials are expected from BT Group, Deutsche Telekom and Elisa, with the latter preparing for commercial deployment.

In the US, T-Mobile has completed what was claimed as the world’s first AI-RAN call on a live network, while in France Orange is introducing new voice and intelligence services for enterprises based on the technology.

Speed of light
Vasishta told MWL it was hard to overhype development based on the progress it had seen over the past year, and the number of trials and deployment is only set to grow.

“A year ago, or two years ago for sure, I think people would have scoffed at the idea. Nokia talking about operator commercialisation with AI-RAN, I think, that would have been perhaps seen as somewhat sceptical.”

Mahajan concurred, describing the pace of development as occurring “at the speed of light” with the game changer centred on being able to outline the true “value of what AI brings in terms of making RAN efficient” such as significant spectrum efficiency gains.

“In the next few years, the distinction between the networks and computing infrastructure will just blur,” she said, inevitably opening up a host of operator opportunities across applications beyond 5G and 6G.

Vasishta added Nvidia had started on the journey of software-defined RAN eight years ago and the inclusion of Nokia in 2025 had accelerated this dramatically.

“We see all operators around the world are created differently. They service different markets, they have different DNA, but overall, all of them have gravitated towards this concept now of AI RAN.”

Click here to listen to the full interview.

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With Nvidia’s GTC Berlin event in full swing, the company’s telecoms boss Ronnie Vasishta and Nokia chief technology and AI officer Pallavi Mahajan sit down with the Mobile World Live Podcast in an exclusive interview to reveal the next stage of the pair’s AI-RAN journey, as they team up with European heavyweights to turn networks into distributed intelligence platforms.

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00:00 — AI-RAN explained
7:20 — Operator trials
11:00 — Beyond edge hype
15:05 — AI-RAN economics
17:45 — Sovereign AI
21:10 — Commercialisation and 6G

The post Podcast: Exclusive – Nokia, Nvidia advance AI-RAN at GTC appeared first on Mobile World Live.