Whereas a lot of the USA suffers by way of an prolonged winter, in Glendale, California, it is one other story. Sunny and heat on a day at Walt Disney Imagineering R&D in mid-March, it was the right setting for assembly summer-loving snowman Olaf of Disney’s juggernaut Frozen franchise.
Olaf — in robotic kind and primed for theme park appearances — debuted final week in Los Angeles and is now being showcased at Nvidia’s GTC 2026 AI conference within the San Francisco Bay Space.
Watch this: I Met Disney’s New Robotic Olaf (Sneak Peek)
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will likely be joined onstage by Olaf throughout his keynote Monday kicking off the corporate’s annual tech convention. The robotic snowman runs simulations on Nvidia GPUs and is powered by Nvidia chips. Olaf was dropped at life utilizing the Newton Physics Engine, an open-source system developed by Nvidia, Google DeepMind and Disney Analysis that permits high-performance robotic simulations to run shortly on GPUs.
Very similar to the free-roaming droids developed by Walt Disney Imagineering that you will discover in Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge at each Disneyland and Disney World, Olaf will stroll round theme parks to greet company and work together with them.
Walt Disney Studios animators helped create the training data used to show Olaf to stroll in simulation — not simply to stroll, however to emulate his signature snowman shuffle.
When CNET senior producer Jesse Orrall interacted with Olaf throughout a press preview at Imagineering R&D HQ final week, the AI-powered robotic was managed by an operator. His voice responses have been chosen by that operator, and he was considerably restricted in what he may say. Olaf can even comply with a script as a part of a present, with plans to broaden these capabilities over time.
“We had our sights set on making a real-life Olaf for a very long time,” Josh Gorin, Disney government R&D Imagineer, informed Orrall. “Know-how lastly caught up.”
He lamented that you could’t give the Olaf robotic heat hugs simply but — although Disney acknowledges it is rather huggable and hopes that can change.
Iridescent fibers woven into Olaf’s physique give him a shiny, snowy look. His mouth and eyes are absolutely articulated, whereas his stick arms, carrot nostril, buttons, eyebrows and hair connect magnetically, permitting for character gags during which his physique elements may be pulled off and reattached.
Olaf debuts March 29 with the opening of the World of Frozen land at Disneyland Paris and can later seem at Hong Kong Disneyland. There is not any phrase but on when the beloved snowman may make appearances stateside at Disneyland or Walt Disney World.
