NVIDIA and Google DeepMind are working with Disney Research on the Newton physics engine to simulate robot movements in real-world environments, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang announced at GTC 2025, TechCrunch reports.
Disney plans to use the technology to create Star Wars-themed robots for its parks around the world, and one of the prototypes even stood next to Huang during his speech.
Newton will help robots be more “expressive” and “learn to perform complex tasks with greater precision.” The physics engine is designed to help developers simulate how robots interact with the world around them, which can sometimes be a difficult task for robotics developers.
The engine will be compatible with Google DeepMind's ecosystem of robot development tools, including its MuJoCo physics engine, which simulates the movements of multi-joint robots.
NVIDIA plans to release an early open-source version of Newton later this year.