Newton Backend#
Newton is a GPU-accelerated, extensible, and differentiable physics simulation engine designed for robotics, research, and advanced simulation workflows. Built on top of NVIDIA Warp and integrating MuJoCo Warp, Newton provides high-performance simulation, modern Python APIs, and a flexible architecture for both users and developers.
Newton is an Open Source community-driven project with contributions from NVIDIA, Google Deep Mind, and Disney Research, managed through the Linux Foundation.
Newton support in Isaac Lab is in beta and under active development. Many features are still maturing, and the Isaac Lab integration ships a focused, validated set of classic RL and flat-terrain locomotion environments. We have validated Newton simulation against PhysX by transferring learned policies in both directions and have successfully deployed a Newton-trained locomotion policy to a G1 robot.
Newton can support multiple solvers for handling different types of physics simulation. The Isaac Lab integration ships the following solver pages:
MJWarp Solver — the primary, validated solver path.
Kamino Solver — beta support on selected classic tasks.
Using the VBD Solver — experimental VBD solver for cloth and soft bodies, available through
isaaclab_contrib.deformableand the MJWarp + VBD or Featherstone + VBD coupled managers.
Each solver is exposed as a small subclass of
NewtonManager. See
Newton Manager Abstraction for the developer-facing guide to adding a
new solver or a coupled solver.
During the beta phase, breaking changes and incomplete documentation are still expected. Official support and debugging assistance will follow once the framework reaches an official release.
For an overview of how the multi-backend architecture works, including how to add a new backend, see Multi-Backend Architecture.