NVIDIA Announces 'NVIDIA Isaac GR00T Reference Humanoid Robot' for Academic Research
On June 1, 2026, at GTC Taipei in Taipei, Taiwan, NVIDIA announced the 'NVIDIA Isaac GR00T Reference Humanoid Robot,' its first open reference design aimed at democratizing humanoid robot research. It integrates the Unitree H2 Plus robot, Sharpa Wave tactile hands, NVIDIA Jetson Thor computing, and Isaac GR00T software to provide a unified platform for research institutions to accelerate cutting-edge humanoid research.
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- 📰 Published: June 3, 2026 at 19:10
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NVIDIA has announced an open humanoid robot reference design based on the NVIDIA Isaac GR00T platform. This platform integrates the Unitree H2 Plus humanoid robot, Sharpa five-fingered hands for dexterous manipulation, NVIDIA Jetson Thor on-board computing for advanced reasoning and control, and open software and models from NVIDIA Isaac GR00T. The Isaac GR00T development platform, covering everything from data collection and generation to robot model evaluation and deployment, helps researchers and developers accelerate their humanoid development workflows. Leading research institutions, including Ai2, ETH Zurich, the Stanford Robotics Center, and the Advanced Robotics and Controls Laboratory at the University of California San Diego, will leverage this reference design to advance cutting-edge humanoid robotics research.
TAIPEI, Taiwan — NVIDIA GTC Taipei — June 1, 2026 — NVIDIA today announced the 'NVIDIA Isaac™ GR00T Reference Humanoid Robot,' its first open humanoid robot reference design based on the NVIDIA Jetson Thor™ and the NVIDIA Isaac GR00T open development platform. This reference design helps democratize cutting-edge humanoid robot research by providing access to advanced hardware and an open software stack without requiring a proprietary platform.
As demand for general-purpose humanoids grows, researchers still face fragmented processes for hardware integration, data collection, simulation, training, evaluation, and deployment. The NVIDIA Isaac GR00T Reference Humanoid Robot centralizes the development process by offering a single reference design that integrates the Unitree H2 Plus humanoid robot and Sharpa Wave tactile five-fingered hands (the 'body') with on-board computing powered by NVIDIA Jetson Thor and the Isaac GR00T software and workflows (the 'brain'). This allows research teams to move more quickly from robot setup to skill development and real-world validation.
With NVIDIA's computing capabilities and open software stack at its core, this reference design provides research teams with a more integrated and secure foundation for advancing humanoid robots. Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA, stated: 'Humanoid robots will bring physical AI to the world's largest industries, unlocking a multi-trillion dollar economic opportunity. The NVIDIA Isaac GR00T Reference Humanoid Robot provides researchers with a single, open platform to achieve groundbreaking discoveries toward general-purpose physical intelligence.'
Cutting-Edge Humanoid Robot for Physical AI Development
The NVIDIA Isaac GR00T Reference Humanoid Robot combines a human-sized robot body with dexterous manipulation, sensing, control, and on-board AI computing, consolidating key components needed for cutting-edge humanoid research into a single, state-of-the-art platform. Key features of this reference design include:
- Unitree H2 Humanoid Chassis: Standing 6 feet (approx. 183 cm) tall and weighing 150 pounds (approx. 68 kg), it features 31 degrees of freedom throughout the body for human-scale testing.
- Dual Sharpa Wave Tactile Five-Fingered Hands: Enables dexterous manipulation with 22 degrees of freedom, increasing the robot's total degrees of freedom to 75.
- Multi-View Sensing: Includes head-mounted stereo cameras with a wide field of view (140 degrees horizontal, 102 degrees vertical), wrist cameras for close-up manipulation, and an inertial measurement unit for motion tracking.
- Full-Body Control: Achieves arm torque up to 120 Newton-meters, leg torque up to 360 Newton-meters, a rated arm payload of 7 kilograms, and a maximum arm payload of 15 kilograms, enabling higher-performance lifting and reaching.
- NVIDIA Jetson AGX Thor™ T5000 On-Board Computing: Features an NVIDIA Blackwell GPU with 2,070 FP4 teraflops of AI performance, a 14-core Arm CPU, 128GB of unified memory, and a configurable power range of 40-130 W for real-time sensor processing and robot reasoning.
- Connectivity: Includes Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, USB, plus a microphone and speaker array for voice interaction.
- Battery for Extended Operation: Has a capacity of 15Ah, 0.972kWh, providing approximately 3 hours of operation.
- Remote Emergency Stop: Allows for quick and safe shutdown of the robot.
NVIDIA Isaac GR00T provides a full-stack platform for humanoid development. While NVIDIA's software stack provides a development environment for simulation, training, evaluation, and deployment, researchers retain control over robot data, training data, telemetry, and logs. The Isaac GR00T platform includes:
- NVIDIA Isaac Teleop: Captures high-quality robot demonstration data for training and policy development.
- NVIDIA Isaac GR00T Open Foundation Models: Supports humanoid reasoning, learning, and multi-task behavior.
- NVIDIA Isaac Sim™ and Isaac Lab: Simulate, train, test, and evaluate robot policies before real-world deployment.
- Accelerated NVIDIA Isaac ROS Middleware: Deploys trained policies to the robot.
- NVIDIA Jetson Thor: Executes real-time inference and control on the robot.
Its modular design allows researchers to swap or upgrade specific components.
TAIPEI, Taiwan — NVIDIA GTC Taipei — June 1, 2026 — NVIDIA today announced the 'NVIDIA Isaac™ GR00T Reference Humanoid Robot,' its first open humanoid robot reference design based on the NVIDIA Jetson Thor™ and the NVIDIA Isaac GR00T open development platform. This reference design helps democratize cutting-edge humanoid robot research by providing access to advanced hardware and an open software stack without requiring a proprietary platform.
As demand for general-purpose humanoids grows, researchers still face fragmented processes for hardware integration, data collection, simulation, training, evaluation, and deployment. The NVIDIA Isaac GR00T Reference Humanoid Robot centralizes the development process by offering a single reference design that integrates the Unitree H2 Plus humanoid robot and Sharpa Wave tactile five-fingered hands (the 'body') with on-board computing powered by NVIDIA Jetson Thor and the Isaac GR00T software and workflows (the 'brain'). This allows research teams to move more quickly from robot setup to skill development and real-world validation.
With NVIDIA's computing capabilities and open software stack at its core, this reference design provides research teams with a more integrated and secure foundation for advancing humanoid robots. Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA, stated: 'Humanoid robots will bring physical AI to the world's largest industries, unlocking a multi-trillion dollar economic opportunity. The NVIDIA Isaac GR00T Reference Humanoid Robot provides researchers with a single, open platform to achieve groundbreaking discoveries toward general-purpose physical intelligence.'
Cutting-Edge Humanoid Robot for Physical AI Development
The NVIDIA Isaac GR00T Reference Humanoid Robot combines a human-sized robot body with dexterous manipulation, sensing, control, and on-board AI computing, consolidating key components needed for cutting-edge humanoid research into a single, state-of-the-art platform. Key features of this reference design include:
- Unitree H2 Humanoid Chassis: Standing 6 feet (approx. 183 cm) tall and weighing 150 pounds (approx. 68 kg), it features 31 degrees of freedom throughout the body for human-scale testing.
- Dual Sharpa Wave Tactile Five-Fingered Hands: Enables dexterous manipulation with 22 degrees of freedom, increasing the robot's total degrees of freedom to 75.
- Multi-View Sensing: Includes head-mounted stereo cameras with a wide field of view (140 degrees horizontal, 102 degrees vertical), wrist cameras for close-up manipulation, and an inertial measurement unit for motion tracking.
- Full-Body Control: Achieves arm torque up to 120 Newton-meters, leg torque up to 360 Newton-meters, a rated arm payload of 7 kilograms, and a maximum arm payload of 15 kilograms, enabling higher-performance lifting and reaching.
- NVIDIA Jetson AGX Thor™ T5000 On-Board Computing: Features an NVIDIA Blackwell GPU with 2,070 FP4 teraflops of AI performance, a 14-core Arm CPU, 128GB of unified memory, and a configurable power range of 40-130 W for real-time sensor processing and robot reasoning.
- Connectivity: Includes Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, USB, plus a microphone and speaker array for voice interaction.
- Battery for Extended Operation: Has a capacity of 15Ah, 0.972kWh, providing approximately 3 hours of operation.
- Remote Emergency Stop: Allows for quick and safe shutdown of the robot.
NVIDIA Isaac GR00T provides a full-stack platform for humanoid development. While NVIDIA's software stack provides a development environment for simulation, training, evaluation, and deployment, researchers retain control over robot data, training data, telemetry, and logs. The Isaac GR00T platform includes:
- NVIDIA Isaac Teleop: Captures high-quality robot demonstration data for training and policy development.
- NVIDIA Isaac GR00T Open Foundation Models: Supports humanoid reasoning, learning, and multi-task behavior.
- NVIDIA Isaac Sim™ and Isaac Lab: Simulate, train, test, and evaluate robot policies before real-world deployment.
- Accelerated NVIDIA Isaac ROS Middleware: Deploys trained policies to the robot.
- NVIDIA Jetson Thor: Executes real-time inference and control on the robot.
Its modular design allows researchers to swap or upgrade specific components.
FAQ
What is the price of this robot?
The price is not mentioned in the article.
Where can I purchase it?
Purchase details are not mentioned in the article.
Is the software free?
The Isaac GR00T platform integrates open software and models, but specific licensing details are not in the article.