Keynote: Graphics, AI, and the Quest for New Experiences at NVIDIA
Friday, April 17, 2026 · 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM · Auditorium 5
Twenty years ago I left academia to help found a new long-term research group at a little-known (but ambitious) company called NVIDIA. Since then, I’ve led research initiatives ranging from computer graphics algorithms and hardware, to display technology and human perception, to generative AI and media forensics. We have written award-winning papers, recruited amazing researchers, and transferred research to game-changing products - and along the way I’ve made mistakes, placed wrong bets, wasted time and resources, and abandoned research directions over and over. In this talk I’ll use anecdotes from my research in graphics, virtual reality, and generative AI to reflect on some lessons from two decades at NVIDIA. Ultimately, these lessons have crystallized into a coherent vision for research that can impact the company: creating “new experiences” that drive demand for NVIDIA products, from ray traced games to VR displays to more humanistic AI. From this vision I’ll motivate some current and future directions in AI research.
About the Speaker
David Luebke
Co-founder of NVIDIA Research
Dr. David Luebke helped found NVIDIA Research in 2006 after eight years on the faculty of the University of Virginia. Luebke received his Ph.D. under Fred Brooks at the University of North Carolina in 1998. His principal research interests are computer graphics, generative neural networks, and virtual reality. Luebke is a Fellow of the IEEE and an inaugural inductee into the IEEE VR Academy. His other honors include the NVIDIA Distinguished Inventor award, the IEEE VR Technical Achievement Award, and Test of Time Awards at ACM SIGGRAPH Asia and the ACM Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics. Dr. Luebke has co-authored a book, a major museum exhibit, and over two hundred papers, articles, chapters, and patents. Luebke is currently Vice President of Research at NVIDIA, where he runs a group of about 40 researchers focused on "New Experiences".