Nvidia has taken the world a step closer to smart, humanoid robots with the launch of its latest advanced AI model.
At its Nvidia GTC 2025 event, the company revealed Isaac GROOT N1, which it says is, “the world’s first open Humanoid Robot foundation model”, alongside several other important development tools.
Nvidia says its tools, which are available now, will make developing smarter and more functional robots easier than ever, along with allowing them to have more humanoid reasoning and skills – which doesn’t sound terrifying at all.
Isaac GROOT N1
“The age of generalist robotics is here,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “With NVIDIA Isaac GR00T N1 and new data-generation and robot-learning frameworks, robotics developers everywhere will open the next frontier in the age of AI.”
The company says its robotics work can help fill a shortfall of more than 50 million caused by a global labor shortage.
Nvidia says Isaac GROOT N1, which can be trained on real or synthetic data, can “easily” master tasks such as grasping, moving objects with either a single or multiple arms, and moving items from one arm to the other – but can also carry out multi-step tasks which combine a number of general skills.
The model is built across a dual-system architecture inspired by the principles of human cognition, with “System 1” is a fast-thinking action model, mirroring human reflexes or intuition, whereas “System 2” is a slow-thinking model for “deliberate, methodical decision-making.”
Powered by a vision language model, System 2 is able to consider and analyze its environment, and the instructions it was given, to plan actions – which are then translated by System 1 into precise, continuous robot movements.
Among the other tools being released are a range of simulation frameworks and blueprints such as the NVIDIA Isaac GR00T Blueprint for generating synthetic data, which help generate large, detailed synthetic data sets needed for robot development which would be prohibitively expensive to gather in real life.
There is also Newton, an open source physics engine, created alongside Google DeepMind and Disney Research, which Nvidia says is purpose-built for developing robots.
Huang was joined on stage by Star Wars-inspired BDX droids during his GTC keynote, showing the possibilities of the technology in theme parks or other entertainment locations.
Nvidia first launched Project GROOT (“Generalist Robot 00 Technology”) at GTC 2024, primarily focusing on industrial use cases, which could learn and become smarter by watching human behaviour, understanding natural language and emulating movements, allowing them to quickly learn coordination, dexterity and other skills in order to navigate, adapt and interact with the real world.
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