Caterpillar is digging deeper into integrating artificial intelligence and automation into its fleet of construction machinery through a partnership with semiconductor giant Nvidia.
The construction equipment giant is using an artificial intelligence assist system on its mid-size Cat 306 CR Mini Excavator. Named ‘Cat AI’, the system was built using Nvidia’s Jetson Thor natural artificial intelligence platform and is being presented at CES on Wednesday.
Brandon Hootman, vice president of data and artificial intelligence at Caterpillar, told TechCrunch that Cat AI has been built into a fleet of AI agents and can help answer a machine operator’s questions, allow them to access resources, offer safety advice and schedule services.
One of the biggest benefits of introducing this technology to these machines is the data these systems collect and send back.
“Our customers don’t sit in front of a laptop day in and day out, they live in the dirt,” Hootman said. “The ability to get the knowledge and take the action they need while doing the job is very important to them.”
Caterpillar is also piloting digital twins of construction sites using Nvidia’s Omniverse simulation resource library to test planning scenarios and better estimate how much construction material a project will need. Hootman said Caterpillar machines send about 2,000 messages back to the company every second. This data will help them create these simulations.
The company already has fully autonomous vehicles in the mining sectorand Hootman said these pilots are a great next step as the company looks to bring more automation to its portfolio.
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“The reason we started here was that it was a real challenge of our customers today that needed to be addressed, as well as something that we had some real momentum on and felt like we could bring to market fairly quickly,” Hootman said. “What we also liked is that it provided a kind of technological foundation to build on.”
Partnering with the likes of Caterpillar—a legacy brand not often associated with the tech industry—seems to fit right in with Nvidia’s natural AI strategy.
Bill Dally, Nvidia’s chief scientist, told TechCrunch in 2025 that the chipmaker sees natural artificial intelligence as the next frontier for the company and its powerful GPUs.
During its CES keynote on Monday, Nvidia laid out plans for its full natural artificial intelligence ecosystem, which includes open AI models such as the company’s Cosmos family of models, simulation tools and developer kits.
While some may think that natural AI is only for robotics companies, Deepu Talla, the vice president of robotics and cutting-edge AI at Nvidia, told TechCrunch that the company has a much broader definition, as everyone is building robotics today.
“Natural artificial intelligence is the next wave of artificial intelligence,” Tala said. “Nvidia is leading the way with computers that train the models, that do the simulation to test the models and deploy the models to the robots, either [that’s] an autonomous car or a Caterpillar machine’.
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