ABB Robotics has announced it will integrate Nvidia Omniverse libraries into ABB Robotics’ RobotStudio to make it easier to deploy physical AI in real world robotics applications.
The collaboration will combine the RobotStudio software programming, design and simulation suite with the physically accurate simulation power of Nvidia Omniverse libraries.
Dubbed RobotStudio HyperReality, the new initiative helps developers simulate robots in digital twins and generate synthetic data to train their physical AI models, enabling businesses of all types and sizes to deploy AI-driven robotics for various industrial workflows.
“Today, using Nvidia accelerated computing and simulation technologies, we have removed the last barriers to making industrial and physical AI a reality at a global scale by closing the sim-to-real gap,” said Marc Segura, President of ABB Robotics. “Today’s announcement with Nvidia brings physical AI to industry at scale.”
The resulting physically accurate simulations and foundation models are endlessly optimized with real-world data feedback continuously improving the system. These models can be used to train any number of ABB robots, anywhere in the world, with the reliability and accuracy demanded by industry.
“The industrial sector needs physically accurate simulation to bridge the gap between virtual training and the real-world deployment of AI-driven robotics at scale,” said Deepu Talla, vice president of robotics and edge AI at Nvidia.
Talla says integrating Omniverse libraries into RobotStudio brings advanced simulation and accelerated computing to ABB Robotics’ unique virtual controller technology, helping manufacturers of all sizes bring complex products to market.
The ‘sim-to-real’ gap
When it comes to industrial robotics, the sim-to-real gap refers to the difference between how a robot behaves in a simulation versus how it behaves in the real physical world. When engineers design or train robotic systems in simulation, the model can never perfectly capture the complexity of real environments, so performance often degrades when the system is deployed on actual equipment.
For decades, this gap has limited the ability of manufacturers to design and develop advanced manufacturing processes in the virtual world.
The company says the simulation and synthetic data generation capabilities gained by integrating Omniverse libraries into RobotStudio will allow intelligent robots to bridge this gap with up to 99 percent accuracy. ABB’s virtual controller runs the same firmware as its hardware, and the company says this ensures near‑perfect correlation between simulation and real‑world performance.
Combined with ABB Robotics’ Absolute Accuracy technology, which reduces positioning errors from 8–15 mm to around 0.5 mm, the precision in both virtual and physical environments makes it suited to high-precision industrial-grade applications.
Manufacturers will design, test, and optimize production lines virtually, and ABB claims users will cut setup and commissioning times by up to 80 percent and eliminate the need for physical prototypes.
ABB Robotics says it’s also assessing the potential to integrate the Nvidia’s Jetson edge computing platform into its Omnicore controller to achieve real-time AI inference at the edge for its extensive robot portfolio. The company has already integrated NVIDIA Jetson into ABB Robotics’ VSLAM autonomous mobile robots as well as the developed gigawatt-scale AI data centers.
RobotStudio HyperReality will serve industrial clients at any scale, across a breadth of industries and applications, with select customers already testing its capabilities ahead of a full release to ABB Robotics’ 60,000 RobotStudio customers worldwide in the second half of 2026.
Pilot projects
Foxconn, the world’s largest electronics contract manufacturer, is piloting the first joint use case in consumer electronics assembly. Automating the assembly of a tiny piece in consumer electronics is challenging, as multiple device variants require different production methods and the delicate metal structure requires precise pick-and-place and assembly control, as well as fine-tuned setup, often demanding additional debugging time and engineering resources.
Using RobotStudio HyperReality, Foxconn’s assembly robots are trained virtually, using synthetic data to perfect multiple real-world production processes in various scenarios, before moving them to the production line with 99 percent accuracy.
WORKR, a California based robotic workforce company that delivers robotic manufacturing solutions to industry, is extending the reach of this technology to small and medium manufacturers across the United States. At Nvidia GTC 2026 (March 16-19, San Jose, CA), WORKR will demonstrate AI- powered robotic systems built on ABB technology, trained with synthetic data using Omniverse libraries, and deployed without operators needing to know any programming.
By combining ABB’s industrial grade robotics with its proprietary WorkrCore AI platform, the company is helping manufacturers address critical labor shortages with its robotic workforce that can learn new tasks in minutes and be operated by anyone.