By Ethan Baron
Publication Date: 2026-03-21 11:00:00
The tens of thousands of conference attendees who surged into downtown San Jose this week provided a stark contrast to the typical daytime emptiness, and highlighted the otherwise sluggish recovery of the city’s economically vital conference and convention business.
Nvidia said Friday that 30,000 people had registered for its annual artificial intelligence-focused NVIDIA GTC event, up 5,000 from last year. It was unclear how many registrants attended, but the company said it hasn’t historically seen much drop-off. Sidewalks, restaurants, hotels and coffee shops were packed with technology industry workers draped in the bright green badge lanyards from the five-day event.
“The Nvidia conference is the greatest thing that’s happened to downtown San Jose,” said Matt Rocca, co-owner of Original Joe’s restaurant, a stone’s throw from the San Jose McEnery Convention Center where the conference took place.
“This town has been dead for six years ever since COVID,” Rocca said Wednesday. “Now we’ve got activity and we love it.”
Still, Rocca added, downtown San Jose’s conference business is “just not back to normal yet.”
Team San Jose and Nvidia didn’t have economic impact figures from the conference. While…
