Caterpillar is diving deeper into integrating AI and automation into its fleet of construction machinery through a partnership with semiconductor giant Nvidia.
The construction equipment giant is piloting an AI assistive system on its mid-sized Cat 306 CR Mini Excavator. Named “Cat AI,” the system is built around using it Nvidia Jetson Thor physical AI platform, and is being demoed at CES on Friday.
Brandon Hootman, vice president of data and AI at Caterpillar, told TechCrunch that Cat AI is built on a fleet of AI agents and can help answer machine operators’ questions, allow access to resources, provide safety tips, and schedule service.
One of the biggest benefits of bringing this technology to the machine is the data that the system collects and transmits.
“Our customers don’t live in front of their laptops every day; they live in the dirt,” Hootman said. “The ability to get the insight and action needed while doing the job is very important to him.”
Caterpillar is also piloting a digital twin construction site using the Nvidia Omniverse simulation resource library to test scheduling scenarios and further quantify the amount of building materials needed for a project. Hootman said Caterpillar engines send about 2,000 messages back to the company every second. This data will help create the simulation.
The company already has fully autonomous vehicles in the mining sectorand Hootman says this pilot program is a good next step as the company looks to bring more automation to its portfolio.
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“The reason we started here is that there are real challenges for our customers today that we have to solve, and there’s also some real momentum and we feel like we can bring it to market very quickly,” Hootman said. “What we’re also interested in is providing the technological foundation that we’re going to build on.”
Working with a company like Caterpillar — a legacy brand that doesn’t often intertwine with the tech industry — seems to fit right in with Nvidia’s physical AI strategy.
Bill Dally, Nvidia’s chief scientist, told TechCrunch in 2025 chipmaker considers physical AI as the next frontier for the company and its powerful GPU.
During Monday’s CES keynote, Nvidia outlined its plans a full stack ecosystem for physical AIwhich includes an open AI model like the enterprise The Cosmos model familysimulation tools, and developer kits.
While some may think physical AI is only for robotics companies, Deepu Talla, vice president of robotics and edge AI at Nvidia, told TechCrunch the company is taking on a broader definition because everyone is building robotics these days.
“Physical AI is the next wave of AI,” Talla said. “Nvidia is a pioneer with computers that train models, that do simulations to test models and attach models to robots, whether (it’s) an autonomous car or a Caterpillar machine.”
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