Deep Dive into Arm’s Physical AI and Robotics Strategies with Drew Henry

The Robot Report Podcast · 23 Jun 2026 · 1h 11m

AI in practice: 4 real uses of AI described

What this episode covers

Drew Henry, Executive Vice President of Arm’s Physical AI business unit, explains how Arm is shifting from component-level design to system-level architecture for robotics and autonomous vehicles. He details the critical engineering constraints of physical AI, including the need for sub-millisecond latency, power efficiency measured in 'tokens per joule per kilogram,' and the integration of perception-driven and interactive-driven compute planes. Henry also discusses Arm's 'Seamless Fabric' software strategy, the industry's reliance on simulation to bridge the data gap for humanoid robots, and the move toward distributed computing architectures to handle complex sensor streams.

AI in practice

Where this conversation describes AI being used to build or deliver a product. Part of the AI in practice tracker.

Engineering & simulationNVIDIA Isaac Sim

Arm partners with NVIDIA to use Isaac Sim for creating synthetic environments that are physically accurate, allowing them to train AI models for robotics safely and at scale before deployment.

“So this is where we work super closely with guys like Nvidia for the work they do with Isaac Simm. We also work really closely with guys like, um, um, like Siemens and Synopsis and others for actually creating digital representations of the compute system itself.”

Drew Henry · Hear it at 1:02:51

Engineering & simulationSiemens

Arm collaborates with Siemens to create digital representations of compute systems within simulation environments, integrating hardware modeling into the physical AI design process.

“We also work really closely with guys like, um, um, like Siemens and Synopsis and others for actually creating digital representations of the compute system itself. So it's part of the simulator.”

Drew Henry · Hear it at 1:02:51

Engineering & simulationSynopsys

Arm works with Synopsys to generate digital representations of compute systems for use in simulation, helping to validate architecture and performance in synthetic environments.

“We also work really closely with guys like, um, um, like Siemens and Synopsis and others for actually creating digital representations of the compute system itself. So it's part of the simulator.”

Drew Henry · Hear it at 1:02:51

Engineering & simulationAI agent

Arm designed its new performance analysis toolset to communicate with AI agents, allowing the agent to peer inside compute systems and understand telemetry to optimize software and hardware interactions.

“And we've designed it, not to just work for a software developer, but also work with an AI agent. So it actually communicate at the AI agent level as well as to the software developer…”

Drew Henry · Hear it at 42:41

Mentioned

Companies
Arm, NVIDIA, GreyOrange, FairMinds, Kinesi Robotics, Bear Robotics, Built Robotics, University of Pennsylvania, Ajibot, Siemens, Synopsys, Tesla, Google, Meta, Amazon, Qualcomm
Products
Isaac Sim, AGI CPU

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