Skild AI Open-Sources Steel Physics Solver for Robot Training

The strategic weight here sits less in the raw speed claim than in the licensing: an Apache-licensed solver inside Newton lowers the cost of entry for teams that would otherwise build or license simulation infrastructure. The benchmark is a company-reported, mixed-task comparison against PhysX, so the 13x figure describes one test configuration rather than a general verdict. Robotics developers training policies in simulation are the immediate beneficiaries, though simulator incumbents now face a free alternative in the same stack. Whether independent groups reproduce the throughput claim, and whether Steel attracts outside contributors, is the open question.