NVIDIA adds midrange Jetson Thor modules to 2027 robotics roadmap

NVIDIA is attempting to bridge the gap between high-end developer kits and mass-market production robots by offering Blackwell-class performance at lower memory and power budgets. Maintaining identical memory bandwidth (273GB/s) across the T3000 and T5000 suggests that for memory-bound tasks common in streaming and real-time vision, smaller modules could deliver outsized value if properly optimized. This signals a shift toward physical AI products that prioritize data movement over raw compute density. Watch for the July release of JetPack 7.2.1; developer feedback on T3000 emulation will provide the first real evidence of whether 32GB can effectively handle the foundation models currently requiring 128GB.

The expansion of the Jetson Thor lineup follows the general availability of the flagship T5000 module in August 2025. Per VideoCardz (August 2025), the Jetson AGX Thor developer kit launched at $3,499, and independent testing by HotHardware (August 2025) highlighted the module's Blackwell GPU and 14-core Arm Neoverse-V3AE CPU as a major leap for humanoid robotics. However, ServeTheHome noted in late 2025 that while the T5000 outshines the previous Orin generation by 7.5x in AI compute, managing its 130W peak power envelope remains a significant deployment challenge for mobile robotics.

Software optimization has recently become the primary driver of performance gains for the Thor platform. Per NVIDIA (October 2025), software updates and the adoption of vLLM containers delivered a 3.5x increase in throughput on Llama 3.3 and DeepSeek R1 models within just two months of the platform's launch. These improvements often rely on the NVFP4 format, a four-bit floating-point precision specific to the Blackwell architecture that helps preserve accuracy in large language and vision-language models at the edge.

NVIDIA is also deepening its involvement in the physical AI software stack through partnerships with regional robotics leaders. In July 2026, per TechPowerUp and SiliconANGLE, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang announced a physical AI push in Japan involving 20 companies, including SoftBank and Fujitsu. This initiative centers on the new Cosmos 3 Edge world model, a 4-billion-parameter vision-reasoning model optimized to run on the T3000 and T2000. These efforts aim to move AI from simulation-only environments—such as the Isaac GR00T platform—into production-scale machines capable of real-time environmental reasoning.