Pittsburgh, June 29, 2026 — The University of Pittsburgh Surreality Lab was featured in two sessions at AWE USA 2026, one of the leading conferences for extended reality and artificial intelligence, where its mixed reality surgical guidance work was presented to an audience of industry and academic leaders.
In a Dell Technologies and NVIDIA panel, the lab's augmented reality surgical guidance served as a healthcare example of how AI-powered extended reality can deliver real-time, hands-free guidance in the flow of clinical work. Surreality Lab co-director Jacob Biehl, PhD, of the University of Pittsburgh School of Computing and Information, joined panelists from Dell Technologies, NVIDIA, and Stanford University to discuss how the technology helps users interpret data, understand physical environments, and access expert support where speed, privacy, and local compute matter.
The lab's work was also featured during the conference's "Building Physical AI" keynote, where David Chu of NVIDIA highlighted the Surreality Lab's surgical platform as an example of artificial intelligence moving from the screen into real-world settings such as the operating room.
The Surreality Lab is a collaboration between the University of Pittsburgh Department of Neurological Surgery and the School of Computing and Information, co-directed by Edward Andrews, MD, and Jacob Biehl, PhD. The lab develops spatial computing, artificial intelligence, and robotics tools that let surgeons access and adjust imaging and other data during a procedure without scrubbing out or looking away from the patient. Its mixed reality platform has progressed from laboratory studies to live use in the operating room at UPMC.
Recordings of the Dell Technologies and NVIDIA panel and the "Building Physical AI" keynote are available online.
