GTC has come and gone. The whole of downtown San Jose made way for Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and family to douse the town in green, black, and white.

The 2026 edition felt somewhat different – and I’m not talking about the unbearable heat at times throughout the conference (87-degrees Fahrenheit). And in a way, a lot of the recent editions have almost lost their magic.

Imagine you’re a kid at Christmas again. You’re about the age where the illusion of Santa Claus has waned, and you pretty much know what presents you’re getting. The excitement just isn’t there anymore, would you say?

GTC is kind of like those Christmases then. We already know what’s coming, owing to Nvidia’s shift to an annual roadmap, or to use Huang's parlance, "rhythm." The excitement of tuning into an Nvidia keynote and being wowed by new announcements of next-gen stuff, like Father Christmas, has disappeared, at least for me.

In the lead-up to GTC 2026, the Nvidia CEO promised the world that he had in store a chip that would “surprise people.” This writer hates to admit he spent hours in Reddit forums and Discord channels reading speculation – is a new silicon photonics chip? Will we be getting a look at the "rhythm" for 2029 and 2023? Or how about a real, detailed look at the Feynman-gen GPU?

Instead, we got the Groq 3 language processing unit (LPU), a graphics processing unit (GPU) ride-along from a company we knew Nvidia acqui-hired last December. A storage reference architecture for so-called AI factories. And a single gaming announcement that Huang defended a mere day after its unveiling.

Think of the gasps at home and in the SAP Center if Nvidia made its initial Groq announcement live on stage. The shockwaves that could have been sent from that.

Alas, we just got what we already kinda knew was coming. Huang brought out a Kyber rack-scale system, but we’ve already seen it before. He spoke at length about what product lines were coming in Feynman, but we’ve already seen that before. He touched on Nvidia’s work in AI radio access networks (AI-RAN) with Nokia and T-Mobile US. Efforts we already knew about.

But in a way, that’s what GTC is all about these days. Playing it safe. One slip of the tongue and the share price of the most valuable company in the world could slide. Lest we forget last year’s quantum debacle? The CEO’s innocuous comments on quantum technology timeframes sent prices tumbling. And while it recovered, the same can’t be said for many of the actual quantum companies also affected.

Huang even referred to this during his keynote, after revealing the largest percentage of GTC attendees were from the financial services industry, joking, “I'm hoping it's developers, not traders.”

All I’m trying to say is, if you know what’s coming, how can you truly get excited about something? And even then, if you take Groq out of the occasion, what is there to truly get excited about? A robotic Olaf from "Frozen"? (Which of itself was tough to make out what it was saying, listen to this one point - "Im a snow man, not a snow hmphf mmpfg mpfff.")

But in a way, when Huang sat on the floor next to said snowman, it was almost a show of force. Like "this is what we've got for you, now watch me take it all in." For all the chip reveals, semi-funny jokes, and creepy robots, that one moment was the most significant of all from GTC: A CEO confident enough to sit on the floor of a stage and look up knowing, "we've done more than enough."

The real GTCmas present: Our merch picks

But don’t let my "ungrateful child at Christmas energy" fool you. GTC was a blast. Lots of great conversations and tons of amazing interviews to come. But the real GTCmas present was … the presents, or merch.

Let’s break down our pics for who had the best GTC merch

Best Hat: Nvidia

$20, merch store

Best T-shirt: Red Hat

Free, won via claw machine

First up, who doesn’t love a good hat? The Nvidia-branded cap is a stunning example of simplicity. Logo: plain color that goes with lots of other stuff. Nuff said. At $20, it is the priciest merch pick-up on this list. And a special mention should go to the folks from Unstructured who ordered way too many hats spanning some stellar colors. But the ability to wear this with normie clothes means it pips the colorful caps to the punch.

The Red Hat shirt, on the other hand? Simple. Does exactly what it says on the tin. The fact that it was won from a claw machine? Added bonus. 10/10. No notes.

Best Pair of Socks: Microsoft Azure

Free, from the stand

The conference sock is quickly becoming one of the most sought-after merch pick-ups. The field was strong this year, with a stellar outing from Akamai. But Microsoft Azure gets the gong for the wacky pattern. Here me when I say, "folks want socks."

Best Portable Charger: Cerebras

Free, from the side-event

If socks are sought after, then portable chargers are almost a given to pick up at any show. Cerebras won this category hands down at GTC with two options.

We picked up one, a Magcube Pro II. Compact, with no real frills makes it ideal for the conference goer on the go. Featuring wireless charging for both phones and smart watches and a nifty USB-C-plus-lightning cable, this portable charger was a real find.

Best Snack: HBM "chips"

Free, won from a game at the SK Hynix stand

If you’ve not seen these semiconductor snacks, then you’re missing out. Created in collaboration with 7-Eleven, these “HBM chips” contain no actual high-bandwidth memory, but instead a honey and banana flavored snack that has what is essentially a cereal texture. They were everywhere at GTC. And now, a pack adorns my desk in SDxCentral Towers.

Best Stationery: Ruler – Nvidia

$7, merch store

Last but by no means least, a stationary pick-up has long been a staple of conference merch. But this ain’t your average, run-of-the-mill multitipped highlighter job. Another purchase from my own pocket, this ruler has been part of the Nvidia merch line up for a while, but boy is it nifty. Sharp as a nut owing from being made from an actual printed circuit board – just don’t get your hopes up that it’s bits of old Blackwell. It ain’t.