Caterpillar and NVIDIA: Heavy Machinery Gains "Physical Intelligence"

Industrial giant Caterpillar announced on January 7, 2026, an expanded partnership with NVIDIA to implement the Physical AI concept. According to the press release, the new line of construction and mining machinery will be equipped with compute modules based on the NVIDIA Jetson architecture. This will enable machines to not just execute scripts, but perceive their environment and make autonomous real-time decisions using Foundation Models for Robotics.

The collaboration aims to solve two problems: operator shortages and site safety. Bulldozers and excavators will be able to operate in swarm mode, coordinating actions without human intervention. For the industry, this signals that "Physical AI" is moving beyond laboratory robot dogs and beginning to control multi-ton mechanisms, forming the foundation for Industrie 4.0.

Source: Caterpillar / NVIDIA