Actually physical modeling in hardware was introduced by Yamaha in the early 90s as some of us would remember. It's a shame that Yamaha stopped it a long time ago. Yamaha VL-70m https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7pC4o5Mb2w Yamaha VL1 or its module - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYWxCrz3vmQ
Yamaha EX5 or its module - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYaj74agaIo
Or Yamaha plug-in cards for various modules and keyboards.
I understand that GSI uses physical modeling for some of the sounds in their module.
I don't think that Audio Modeling did as well for the strings as they did for woodwinds. They were running 50% pre-order sales for brass last month, but the demos were pretty bad as many noted, and I didn't buy them.