PhD Research Intern, Autonomous Systems and Physical AI Research - 2027
Tech Stack
Tag name is followed by "@" symbol and proficiency level value.
About proficiency levels:
- 1-2 — basic awareness. Minimal hands-on experience, and a rudimentary understanding of the technology's purpose;
- 3-6 — daily use. Comfortable and regular usage, capable of handling common tasks and challenges related to the technology;
- 7-9 — you are an expert, you can teach others, you know all the pitfalls and tricks;
- 10 — exceptional knowledge, comprehensive understanding, and adeptness in all aspects of the technology, including advanced problem-solving. Think twice before claiming or demanding such level.
AI @ 3
CUDA @ 1
Communication @ 6
Deep Learning
Machine Learning @ 3
Parallel Programming @ 1
PyTorch @ 3
Python @ 8
Reinforcement Learning
Robotics @ 3
- 1-2 — basic awareness. Minimal hands-on experience, and a rudimentary understanding of the technology's purpose;
- 3-6 — daily use. Comfortable and regular usage, capable of handling common tasks and challenges related to the technology;
- 7-9 — you are an expert, you can teach others, you know all the pitfalls and tricks;
- 10 — exceptional knowledge, comprehensive understanding, and adeptness in all aspects of the technology, including advanced problem-solving. Think twice before claiming or demanding such level.
Details
NVIDIA's Autonomous Systems and Physical AI Research (ASPIRE) group is recruiting research interns to work on autonomous vehicles, robotics, and physical AI. The team conducts foundational research on intelligent machines that can perceive, reason, and safely interact with people and the physical world.
Research areas include foundation model design, embodied reasoning, safety, closed-loop training and evaluation, agentic workflows for Physical AI development, decision-making under uncertainty, deep learning, reinforcement learning, simulation, and verification and validation of safety-critical AI systems. Researchers are encouraged to publish their work and open-source their code, while collaborating with experts across autonomous vehicles, robotics, perception, simulation, and machine learning.
Responsibilities
- Design and implement cutting-edge techniques for autonomous vehicles, robotics, and physical AI.
- Conduct original research and publish results.
- Collaborate with research colleagues, internal product teams, and external researchers.
- Transfer developed technology to relevant product groups.
Requirements
- Currently pursuing a PhD in Robotics, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
- Relevant research experience in autonomous vehicles, robotics, embodied AI, or autonomous systems.
- Strong knowledge of the theory and practice of vehicle or robot autonomy, or expertise in a related area with a strong interest in applying it to autonomous systems.
- Track record of research excellence, demonstrated through publications at leading conferences and journals such as RSS, ICRA, CoRL, IJRR, NeurIPS, ICML, CVPR, and TAC, as well as other research artifacts such as open-source software.
- Exceptional Python programming skills.
- Experience with C++ and parallel programming, such as CUDA, is a plus.
- Experience with machine learning frameworks such as PyTorch.
- Strong communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to thrive in a dynamic, research-focused team.
Benefits
Interns are eligible for NVIDIA intern benefits.
The internship hourly rate is based on the position, location, year in school, degree, and experience. Applications will be accepted at least until September 17, 2026. NVIDIA is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering an inclusive work environment.