Beyond the Screen, Into a New World

For a long time, artificial intelligence (AI) has been like a smart ghost by our side. It wrote texts, drew pictures, and performed complex calculations instantly on monitors. But it never once made a cup of coffee or tidied up scattered books on its own. That’s because it didn’t exist in the physical world like us.

Now everything is about to change. AI is finally leaving the comfortable digital home and beginning to walk directly into the real world where we breathe together. The era when AI gets ‘hands and feet’ has dawned—the prologue to the Physical AI revolution.

This does not simply mean the emergence of “smarter robots.” It marks the moment when the robot industry, which had developed slowly for decades, receives a powerful heart called AI and is reborn as a trillion-dollar market. In this massive wave of change, which NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang calls “the next chapter of AI,” where should wise investors set their sails?

This story will unfold a map of the new continent called Physical AI and serve as a guide to explore where future treasures are buried.

Chapter 1: The Rebirth of a Giant, From ‘Robotics’ to ‘Physical AI’

Can changing a name change destiny? The name ‘Physical AI’ carries that kind of magical power.

For decades, the word ‘robotics’ conjured images of large, clunky mechanical arms in factories or automated machines moving along predetermined paths. It was attractive but sounded cold and like a story from a distant future.

But NVIDIA replaced this old signboard with a dazzling neon sign called ‘Physical AI.’ The moment the two letters ‘AI’ were added, this field received the spotlight of the world’s hottest AI industry. Massive capital and the best talents worldwide began flocking, saying, “Ah, this is the new territory AI will pioneer!”

From an investor’s perspective, this is not just a name change. It is the strongest signal that the growth engine of this industry has completely shifted from ‘gradual hardware improvements’ to ’exponential AI software advancements.’

Chapter 2: The World’s Architect, NVIDIA’s Grand Plan

During the 19th-century Gold Rush, the greatest wealth was not held by the miners digging for gold but by those who sold sturdy jeans and pickaxes to them. In the new Gold Rush era of Physical AI, NVIDIA is taking on the overwhelming role of making those ‘jeans and pickaxes.’

Instead of focusing on building a single robot, NVIDIA is designing a vast ecosystem that will power all the robots in the world.

• One Mind (Brain): Project GR00T
  • Like Android or iOS on smartphones, this is a foundational model aiming to be a ‘universal operating system (OS)’ installed on all humanoid robots. It is the common soul of robots that understand human speech and learn from observed behavior.
• Dream Training Ground (Virtual World): Isaac Sim & Lab
  • A virtual world where robots can safely learn by falling and making mistakes millions of times before entering reality. This ‘digital twin,’ which replicates real-world physics, dramatically reduces the cost and time of robot development.
• Lightning-Fast Neural Network (Chipset): Jetson Thor
  • The heart-like chip that enables the massive brain (GR00T) to respond instantly inside the robot’s body without delay. It is the key to perfectly deploying cloud-learned wisdom in the real world.

It is still unknown which robot company will be the ultimate winner. But whoever wins, NVIDIA’s technology is very likely to be deeply embedded in the robot’s heart, brain, and nervous system. NVIDIA is the most reliable and stable investment destination for infrastructure in this revolution.

Chapter 3: Two Paths, How Is a Robot’s Soul Created?

The biggest mountain in the journey to build smart robots is ‘data.’ To learn about the real world, robots need vast amounts of experiential data interacting with humans and the environment. But acquiring this data is expensive and time-consuming.

To solve this ‘data dilemma,’ two market giants are fiercely competing with different philosophies.

Approach 1: Perfecting in Virtuality (NVIDIA & Skild AI)

NVIDIA finds the answer in ‘Synthetic Data.’ In the sophisticated virtual world called Isaac Sim, it ‘creates’ data nearly identical to reality almost infinitely. It can generate hundreds of thousands of variations of a human action that would take 10 hours to demonstrate, training robots with a data magic.

• Advantages: Overwhelming speed and scale. Can learn even dangerous scenarios impossible in reality.
• Limitations: The ‘Sim-to-Real Gap.’ No matter how sophisticated the virtual world, it cannot perfectly capture subtle differences in the real world.

Approach 2: Only Real Experience Is Truth (Physical Intelligence)

On the other hand, challengers like ‘Physical Intelligence (π)’ say virtual data is just ‘fake.’ They believe only ‘real-world data’ collected by humans remotely controlling robots can truly teach robots physical senses. Like artisans crafting masterpieces stitch by stitch, they build robot intelligence with the highest quality data.

• Advantages: Very high data quality, potentially stronger performance in the real world.
• Limitations: Slow and costly data collection, difficult to scale.

The winner of this data war will determine the future of the Physical AI industry. This is the key variable investors must watch most sharply when evaluating companies.

Chapter 4: Four Players, Four Ways of Betting on the Future

On the vast stage of NVIDIA, players are pioneering the future with different survival strategies. Investors can discover diverse opportunities by understanding these strategic differences.

Case 1: Selling Smarter ‘Brains’ (Skild AI)

Skild AI takes NVIDIA’s general-purpose brain (GR00T) and fine-tunes it for highly specialized tasks like semiconductor manufacturing. Instead of a general doctor, they create and sell expert AI specialized like a ’neurosurgeon.’ This signals the start of a robot ‘app store’ business.

Case 2: Selling the Perfect ‘One’ (Figure AI)

Figure AI builds its own robot (Figure 01) and operating system (Helix) from start to finish. By tightly integrating hardware and software, it achieves top performance and stability, much like Apple’s strategy. It offers ready-to-deploy solutions for BMW factories, gaining market trust.

Chapter 5: Into Our Lives, The Journey Toward the Future

These smart robots still have several mountains to cross before entering our living rooms beyond factories.

• Technological Mountain: Overcoming subtle differences between virtual and real, making autonomous judgments in complex situations, and ensuring absolute safety alongside humans.
• Social Mountain: The spread of Physical AI will bring major changes to the manual labor market. While it can solve labor shortages in aging societies, social consensus and preparation for job transitions are essential.

Commercialization will unfold as follows:

1. Stage 1 (Now to 3 years): Perform clear tasks in predictable spaces like factories and logistics centers.
2. Stage 2 (3 to 7 years): Expand activity to spaces with some variables like retail stores and hospitals.
3. Stage 3 (After 7 years): Become true partners helping us in unpredictable everyday spaces like homes and public places.

** Final Playbook for Investors**

The great voyage of the Physical AI revolution has just begun. The era of fragmented technical experiments is ending, and a new era where entire industries move on massive platforms has opened. Here are three key compasses for investors to win in this transition.

1. Ride the Platform: The most stable investment, unaffected by the rise and fall of individual robots, is the foundation that makes it all possible—NVIDIA’s ecosystem.
2. Find Gems in the ‘App Store’: Specialized software companies (e.g., Skild AI) solving high-value problems in specific industries on NVIDIA’s OS have the potential to lead the second growth wave.
3. Read the Data Strategy: When evaluating any Physical AI company, ask first, “What data do they collect, how, and how do they use it?” The data strategy is the company’s future competitiveness itself.

At the great moment when intelligence sets foot in the real world, investors who read the flow of change and board the right ship will hold the map to the enormous wealth created by humanity’s next industrial revolution first.