Should you use Nvidia's Issac Sim for your robot simulation?

NVidia is crushing it in the AI space. Practically everyone is using their GPU's to power their AI's, and they will keep doing so for a long time to come. NVidia is constantly putting out new software, and Issac Sim is used by many robotic AI startups.

But I don't think you should use it.

NVidia is a GPU company

It might sound obvious, but NVidia sells GPU's, not software.

This means that everything they do is targeted to force you to buy their GPUs. They need their software to be good, but it doesn't have to be the best. And once you've committed your time to investing in their software stack, their GPU's will look cheap in comparison to the engineering effort to move to other hardware.

So you should avoid jumping in headfirst to a vendor lock in situation.

Useful Robots Don't Always Need AI

Your Roomba vacuum cleaner doesn't need to run an onboard chatbot.

One thing that makes robotics interesting is that robots are always resource constrained. This means that many of the classical algorithms and approaches to path planning and collision avoidance won't require a GPU. These are robust and tried and true technologies that work well.

You may not need AI to solve the problem.

Your Robot Can't Live In Simulation For Ever

If you want to actually build a robot, you'll need a robot control system.

If you want a small gap between your simulation and reality, you'll need to simulate not just the robot but all of the software needed to drive the robot. So you should consider systems that are easily moveable to the real thing.

Everyone wants their startup to sound sexy but you shouldn't use Issac Sim just because Nvidia made it.