Asier Arranz - Senior Staff Developer Advocate

Professional Summary

I work at the intersection of AI and robotics, building robotics systems with simulation and vision-language models. My focus is on deploying large models on edge devices, training in simulation, and testing on physical robots. Currently leading global developer advocacy at NVIDIA with 5+ years at the company, making AI work on edge devices for global developers and researchers.

2019 Milestone I built AskSkynet.com, the world's first web-based interface to "chat with a GPT" model. I deployed OpenAI's GPT-2 model (117M params) immediately after it was published, running it locally on NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX. This pioneering work with transformers on edge devices, back when such conversations were still science fiction for most, is what brought me to NVIDIA.

I work with large language models, VLMs (Vision-Language Models), and VLAs (Vision-Language-Action models for robotics). I integrate GR00T, NVIDIA's foundation model for humanoids, with physical robots like the LeRobot SO-100/101 arms to validate behavior outside simulation. I create technical demos and workshops on advanced ML topics, presenting at international conferences and universities.

Professional Experience

NVIDIA Corporation Global

Oct 2024 – Present

Senior Staff Developer Advocate

Lead engaging live demonstrations of NVIDIA's technology stack, showcasing Small & Large Language Models (SLMs/LLMs), AI Agents, Robotics, Simulation, and Jetson platforms to inspire and educate developers, students, researchers, and businesses.
Create and deliver technical content, including workshops and hands-on labs, to show the power of NVIDIA's AI solutions, helping communities and industry partners apply these technologies in real-world situations.
Develop educational resources that simplify AI concepts for all technical levels.
Present at international conferences including the international debut of Gemma 2 & Gemma 3 at Google Tokyo alongside Google's CEO with live demo on Jetson devices.
Deploy cutting-edge models like Qwen3-Max, Qwen3-VL, Gemma 3, Llama 3.2-Vision, and InternVL 2.5 on devices from Jetson Orin Nano to Jetson Thor.

NVIDIA Corporation EMEA

Oct 2020 – Sep 2024

Technical Marketing Engineer, Jetson Embedded/Robotics

Specialized in running the latest Generative AI SOTA software on embedded AI devices (GPT, Llama, Mixtral, LLaVa, etc.) with focus on practical implementation.
Promoted the capabilities of generative AI on NVIDIA Jetson Orin devices, focused on industry applications, smart spaces and computer vision.
Created educational materials and assets to train partners who can influence market segments and customer decisions to evangelize on generative AI.
Speaker at international events focusing on technical live demonstrations.
Worked with PR, tech-influencers, developer communities, students, researchers, industry partners and enterprise developers.

IBM Research New York, USA

Apr 2019 – Oct 2020

Global Quantum Community Lab Lead

Created and led a team of designers, developers, and creative technologists working with IBM Research teams.
Designed, planned, and executed digital experiences for quantum computing adoption with universities and Q-Network partners.
Organized inspiring hackathons in the Swiss Alps and Tokyo mountains to attract developers to the quantum computing ecosystem.
Tech demos showcased in the official IBM booth at CES and WEF Davos.
Patent holder for 3D quantum circuit visualization, developed before Google Quantum AI's similar implementation.

Meta (Facebook) California, USA

Jun 2018 – Mar 2019

Oculus Launchpad Fellow

Selected for the prestigious Oculus Launch Pad fellowship, receiving mentorship directly from Facebook executives.
Developed and executed the full project pipeline of a virtual reality production, created the first 6DOF "Mario Kart" VR experience in my apartment.
Invited to showcase the project at Oculus Connect conference in San Jose, California.

ConsenSys Brooklyn, USA

Apr 2018 – Jun 2018

Developer Program Manager

Designed and deployed a blockchain learning program for top executives and engineering teams.
Implemented the program in two global training events in Zürich and Singapore.
Based on Python development of smart contracts using the Ethereum Network.

IE Business School Madrid, Spain

Feb 2016 – Apr 2018

Head of Technology Lab & International MBA Professor

Created and grew the Technology Lab as a new IE department to position the business school as one of the top innovators worldwide (IE was highlighted in Financial Times University Ranking because of this project).
Designed and implemented the "WOW Room", internationally awarded by Reimagine Education Awards.
International MBA professor, teaching emerging tech to MBA students.
Received Teacher Excellence Award at IE Business School (2017, 2018).

Education

University of Deusto

Telecommunications Engineering • Bilbao, Spain • 2003-2008

Honored ProUD Alumni as one of the 50 historically featured students based on their careers.
Represented my generation of students in the 40th anniversary of the faculty of engineering.

Recognition & Awards

IBM Quantum Hackathon Winner at Qiskit Camp • 2019

Business Insider Top 25 Tech Twitter Accounts • 2018-19

TechCrunch Disrupt SF Winner • 2015

Microsoft First HoloLens Developer in Europe • 2016

Google-BBVA InnovaApps+ Winner • 2014

Qualcomm Developer of the Month • 2013

Global Speaking Engagements

Google Tokyo – Gemma 2 & 3 Launch with CEO 2024

NVIDIA GTC – LLMs, Robotics, and Edge AI 2020-24

TEDx – Democratizing AI (Multiple) 2015-24

MIT Enterprise Forum – AI Innovation Roundtable 2019-24

World Economic Forum – Quantum Computing Demos 2020

Talent Land Mexico – Main Stage Keynote 2019

Technical Expertise

AI/ML Models Large Language Models (GPT, Llama, Mixtral, Qwen3), Vision-Language Models (Qwen3-VL, Llama 3.2-Vision, InternVL 2.5), Vision-Language-Action Models (VLAs for robotics), Gemma 2/3, Small Language Models (SLMs)

Simulation Genesis, Isaac Sim, Isaac Lab, GR00T (NVIDIA's foundation model for humanoids), LeRobot SO-100/101 arms (Hugging Face), Physical robot validation

Hardware NVIDIA Jetson (Orin Nano, Orin, Xavier NX, Thor), DGX Spark (desktop AI supercomputer), Edge computing devices, Robotics platforms

ML Techniques Unsupervised Learning, Clustering (UMAP, HDBSCAN, K-Means, BERTopic), Fine-tuning, Inference optimization, Model evaluation, TensorRT, CUDA

Development Python, C++, JavaScript/React, TensorFlow, PyTorch, Computer Vision, XR/VR Development, Quantum Computing (Qiskit)