Design & Simulation Summit: Can AI Be Trusted for Engineering Workflows?

This year’s Digital Engineering Design & Simulation Summit will feature case studies from UL Research Institutes and Weber Food Technology; an overview of an award-winning design from the NASA Entry Systems Modeling Project; and a live keynote panel on artificial intelligence (AI) for design and engineering solutions.

The virtual event will kick off with the keynote panel at noon Eastern Time on Thursday, Oct. 30. You can register for the Summit here.

The live keynote panel is entitled “AI is My Copilot: Are AI-Powered Tools Reliable Enough for Design and Simulation Workflows?”, and will be moderated by DE Senior Editor Kenneth Wong. Other panelists include McKinsey & Company partner Jan Paul Stein and CIMdata consultant Sandeepak Natu.

According to the keynote description: "Design and simulation software vendors have been adding AI-powered copilots and assistants, capable of understanding natural language. In theory, they can peruse public forums and internal databases to answer users’ technical questions, or offer step-by-step guidance on complex processes like 3D modeling and simulation setup. But how reliable are they? What do users need to know about the way they work and the answers they give? Could this become another barrier for users to get help from real human experts?

"In this LIVE keynote, our expert panelists discuss the strengths and weaknesses of AI-powered features in design and simulation software."

Craig Hamill, formerly of UL Research Institutes, is featured in the Engineering Computing track (sponsored by SimOps and TotalCAE), and will explain how his organization is using a hybrid high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure combining Microsoft Azure based cloud resources with optimized on-premises clusters to accelerate its simulation and analysis operations. UL Research Institutes is a safety science organization that is part of the Underwriters Laboratories group of enterprises. You can read more about their simulation activities in this article from earlier in 2025. (You can learn more about the session and register here.)

Madhav Gupta of Weber Food Technology will explain how his company is using live digital twins for industrial automation in its manufacturing facilities. (You can learn more about the session and register here.)

The Additive Manufacturing Track this year will focus on the importance of post-processing in successful 3D printing initiatives. Professor Carmen Torres-Sanchez, who runs the Multifunctional materials Manufacturing Lab at Loughborough University, will discuss how post-processing can improve surface finish of designs with intricate details and small features, and present a case study involving titanium alloy lattices. (You can learn more and register for the session here.)

The Simulation-Led Design track (sponsored by Rescale and Dassault Systèmes CATIA) will feature industrial designer and engineer Fabien Chancel, who will discuss his “Static Pressure Launch (SPL” project, which won first place in the international ejection mechanism design challenge hosted on GrabCAD and supported by NASA’s Entry Systems Modeling Project. (You can learn more about the session and register here.)

This year’s virtual event is also supported by Platinum Sponsors GoEngineer, Dell Technologies and NVIDIA.

You can register for all sessions at the event registration page.