Nvidia, Disney, Google Contribute Open-Source Newton Engine to Linux Foundation (www.phoronix.com)

NVIDIA, Disney Research and Google DeepMind have contributed the Newton engine’s source code to the Linux Foundation, donating an open developer stack for accelerating data generation and spatial computing aimed at robotics and embodied AI. Newton is implemented in Python atop NVIDIA’s Warp framework — a high-performance developer library that, when paired with NVIDIA CUDA‑X, delivers GPU-accelerated simulation and compute. The engine also integrates OpenUSD for scene description/interchange and offers MuJoCo compatibility, positioning Newton as a bridge between existing physics-driven robotics workflows and newer GPU-accelerated tooling. The project will continue development on GitHub under Linux Foundation stewardship. For the AI/ML community this matters because simulation scale, fidelity and interoperability are central to training robust robotics and embodied agents. Newton’s combination of Warp/CUDA-X acceleration and OpenUSD/MuJoCo support promises faster data-generation pipelines, easier migration of existing MuJoCo-based benchmarks, and richer scene composition for perception and control research. Moving the code into the Linux Foundation aims to lower governance friction and encourage cross-industry collaboration, though the stack’s tight coupling to NVIDIA acceleration may favor NVIDIA GPUs in practice. Overall, Newton could meaningfully speed simulation-driven research and industrial workflows by making high-performance, open simulation tooling more accessible.