NVIDIA CEO believes Tesla’s Optimus robot will unlock multi-trillion dollar market

As 2026 dawns, a resurfaced video of NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has reignited excitement across the tech industry, with the chipmaking titan declaring Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot capable of igniting the next multi-trillion dollar industry.

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The clip, widely shared on X on New Year’s Day and rapidly surpassing millions of views, captures Huang’s effusive praise for Elon Musk, whom he calls an “extraordinary engineer” he loves working with. Huang highlights their deep collaboration, building massive AI supercomputers with NVIDIA GPUs powering Tesla’s autonomous driving and xAI’s Grok models. But Optimus steals the show: Huang labels it a “gigantic opportunity” arriving “right around the corner,” uniquely positioned for high-volume production and mass deployment.

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The Multi-Trillion Dollar Vision

Huang’s comments, originally from 2025 interviews, underscore enduring confidence in the NVIDIA-Tesla partnership as humanoid robotics accelerates. Tesla first unveiled Optimus in 2021 as a concept, followed by walking prototypes in 2022 and significant advances in Gen 2 by late 2023, demonstrating improved dexterity, faster walking, and delicate object handling like sorting blocks or folding shirts.

By 2025, Tesla demonstrated more fluid movement and task performance, with Musk announcing plans to deploy thousands in factories for internal use starting late 2025, targeting 5,000 units that year and scaling to 100,000 by 2026. Optimus is engineered for unsafe, repetitive, or mundane tasks – factory assembly, logistics, or eventually household chores – potentially addressing global labor shortages and aging populations.

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Wall Street echoes Huang’s enthusiasm with expansive long-term forecasts. Analysts project the total addressable market for humanoid robots could reach $9 trillion by 2050, driven by hardware, software ecosystems, maintenance, and productivity gains. Near-term market size estimates vary, from billions in the coming decade to explosive growth fueled by AI advances. Musk has long asserted Optimus could eclipse Tesla’s automotive business, potentially valuing the company at tens of trillions.

NVIDIA, providing the AI brains through inference chips and training infrastructure, positions itself as a key beneficiary. The companies’ relationship, spanning over a decade from early Autopilot hardware to today’s megaclusters, has weathered tensions but now thrives on mutual dependence in the AI era.

Competition intensifies, however. Startups like Figure and Agility Robotics attract massive funding, while Chinese firms, backed by aggressive government support, plan rapid scaling, with producers like Agibot and BYD targeting thousands of units in 2025-2026.

Significant hurdles remain: achieving reliable human-level dexterity, ensuring safety in dynamic environments, navigating regulations, and driving costs below $30,000 per unit. Ethical concerns around job displacement and AI alignment also loom large. Yet Huang’s endorsement from one of tech’s foremost visionaries signals strong conviction in Optimus as the breakthrough leader. As deployments begin in earnest this year, the multi-trillion dollar future he foresees feels tantalizingly close, poised to reshape economies, industries, and daily life profoundly.

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Vyom Ramani

A journalist with a soft spot for tech, games, and things that go beep. While waiting for a delayed metro or rebooting his brain, you’ll find him solving Rubik’s Cubes, bingeing F1, or hunting for the next great snack. View Full Profile