How NVIDIA Helped Disney Bring the Star Wars Droids to Life

I recently had the chance to speak with Spencer Huang, Product Line Manager for Robotics at NVIDIA, about a project that has been captivating audiences on and off the screen: Disney’s BDX droids.

You may have seen them at NVIDIA GTC—or in your social feeds—roaming autonomously with expressive gestures and surprising emotional range. These bots are more than theme park attractions. They’re a milestone in physical AI and simulation-first robotics.

“You want to go sim first,” Spencer told me. “We simulate hundreds—sometimes thousands—of robots at once... It’s trial and error at scale.”

These droids are now headed to the big screen in The Mandalorian and Grogu, but their origin story is a fusion of Disney’s character magic and NVIDIA’s simulation infrastructure.

I’ve written the full story (and included the video interview) on my new robotics Substack: DROIDS.

And if you’re just here for the robots, you know where to find me.

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