CES 2026: Caterpillar and NVIDIA Push Physical AI Into Heavy Industry
Caterpillar and NVIDIA deepened their partnership at CES 2026, outlining how Physical AI will transform construction, mining, manufacturing, and industrial supply chains.
CES 2026 marked another milestone in the rise of Physical AI, with Caterpillar and NVIDIA unveiling an expanded collaboration aimed at reshaping heavy industry. The partnership signals how artificial intelligence is moving beyond digital workflows and into the machines, factories, and jobsites that power the global economy.
“As AI moves beyond data to reshape the physical world, it is unlocking new opportunities for innovation – from job sites and factory floors to offices,” said Joe Creed, CEO of Caterpillar. “Caterpillar is committed to solving our customers’ toughest challenges by leading with advanced technology in our machines and every aspect of business. Our collaboration with NVIDIA is accelerating that progress like never before.”
For Caterpillar, the collaboration is about embedding intelligence directly into iron. For NVIDIA, it extends its AI platforms into some of the most demanding physical environments on earth – construction zones, mines, and industrial plants – where reliability, safety, and scale matter more than novelty.
Machines Built for the AI Era
At the core of the partnership is NVIDIA’s Jetson Thor platform, which Caterpillar plans to deploy across construction, mining, and power-generation equipment. Running advanced AI models at the edge allows Cat machines to process massive volumes of sensor data in real time, enabling smarter decision-making in unpredictable environments.
This shift lays the groundwork for AI-assisted and autonomous operations at scale. Caterpillar described future machines as part of a “digital nervous system” for jobsites, where fleets continuously analyze conditions, adapt to terrain, and optimize productivity. In-cab AI features will also play a growing role, providing operators with real-time coaching, safety alerts, and performance insights tailored to specific tasks and environments.
Rather than replacing operators, Caterpillar is positioning AI as an augmentation layer – one that helps crews work faster, safer, and with greater confidence as jobsites become more complex.
Debuting the Cat AI Assistant
One of the most visible announcements at CES 2026 was the debut of the Cat AI Assistant. Designed as a proactive digital partner, the assistant integrates voice-based interaction directly into Caterpillar’s onboard and digital systems. Built using NVIDIA’s Riva speech models, it delivers natural, conversational responses while drawing on Caterpillar’s own equipment and maintenance data.
In practical terms, this means operators and fleet managers can ask questions about machine health, parts, troubleshooting, or maintenance schedules and receive context-aware guidance instantly. Inside the cab, voice activation can adjust settings, guide diagnostics, and connect users to the right tools without interrupting work.
The assistant reflects a broader trend at CES 2026: Physical AI systems are increasingly conversational, intuitive, and embedded directly into workflows rather than accessed through separate dashboards.
NVIDIA AI Factory and the Reinvention of Industrial Operations
Beyond the jobsite, Caterpillar is leveraging NVIDIA AI Factory to transform manufacturing and supply chain operations. AI Factory provides the accelerated computing infrastructure, software frameworks, and AI libraries needed to train, deploy, and continuously improve large-scale industrial AI systems.
Caterpillar is using this infrastructure to automate and optimize core manufacturing processes such as production forecasting, scheduling, and quality control. By running these workloads on AI Factory, Caterpillar can process vast datasets faster, adapt to changing demand, and improve resilience across its global production network.
A major component of this effort is the creation of physically accurate digital twins of Caterpillar factories using NVIDIA Omniverse and OpenUSD technologies. These digital environments allow teams to simulate factory layouts, test production changes, and optimize workflows before implementing them in the real world — reducing downtime, risk, and cost.
Physical AI Moves From Concept to Infrastructure
The Caterpillar–NVIDIA collaboration fits squarely into the broader narrative of CES 2026, where Physical AI emerged as a unifying theme across robotics, autonomy, logistics, and heavy industry. From autonomous construction equipment to AI-driven factories, intelligence is becoming embedded directly into physical systems.
By combining Caterpillar’s century-long experience in industrial machinery with NVIDIA’s AI platforms and AI Factory infrastructure, the two companies are signaling that Physical AI is no longer experimental. It is becoming foundational infrastructure for how industries build, move, and power the world.
As Caterpillar CEO Joe Creed noted, AI is no longer just analyzing data – it is actively reshaping how work gets done. In heavy industry, that transformation is now moving at full speed.
