Physical AI Expo to focus on scaling robotics in San Jose

Physical AI Expo North America will take place May 18–19, 2026 at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center. The two-day conference will concentrate on deploying artificial intelligence in robotics, industrial automation and autonomous systems at scale.

Organizers expect engineers, enterprise technologists and industry leaders to attend. The agenda centers on moving AI from models and software into machines that sense, reason and act in physical environments.

Presentations and panels will examine how companies integrate intelligence into robots and autonomous equipment, and how they build the data and compute platforms that support those systems. Speakers will address developer tools and workflows, as well as reliability and safety practices for machines operating around people and in complex settings.

The program separates strategy from implementation. Day one emphasizes enterprise AI strategy, large-scale data infrastructure and the organizational changes needed to support robotic and autonomous operations. Day two focuses on robotics, industrial automation and case studies of projects that have moved from prototypes into operational use.

Confirmed speakers include Leslie Karpas, Inception global head of Physical AI at NVIDIA; Arne Stoschek, vice president of AI and Autonomous at Airbus Acubed; Jose Alvarez, director of research at NVIDIA; Vinesh Sukumar, vice president of AI at Qualcomm; Simon Ninan, senior vice president and global head of strategy at Hitachi; Sungho Kim, chief executive of Hyundai Global Software Center; Naresh Dulam, senior vice president of software engineering at JPMorgan; and Pierre-Alexandre Balland, chief data scientist at CEPS and co-founder of General Robotics. The roster represents companies working in manufacturing, logistics, automotive and defense.

Michael Hughes, head of conference production, commented: “Physical AI is rapidly moving from concept to deployment. The conversation is no longer just about models — it is about infrastructure, robotics, autonomous systems and building AI that can reliably operate in the real world at scale. Physical AI Expo brings together the companies and engineers making that future happen right now.”

Organizers say sessions will offer technical detail alongside enterprise deployment approaches, with a focus on the infrastructure investments and operational practices needed to run intelligent machines in production. The event will be held in Silicon Valley, where many companies developing robotic and autonomous systems are located.