Traditionally, original equipment manufacturing (OEM) engineering workflows can be lengthy, often spanning weeks or months, which results in delays in time to market. A Swiss AI startup has found a way to accelerate the process, changing the workflow of product development engineers for good. 

Neural Concept was founded in 2018 and spun out from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). Its developed 

an end-to-end 3D AI platform which places AI at the centre of the product development process to transform the way engineers conceptualise, design, and validate products. 

And this week its at CES in Las Vegas with customer OPmobility.

I spoke to Pierre Baqué, CEO and co-founder at Neural Concept, to learn more. 

Over 70 OEMs and Tier 1 across automotive, consumer electronics, aerospace and microelectronics, including Bosch, LG Electronics, General Electric, and Subaru, rely on Neural Concept’s platform to cut end-to-end product development times by up to 75 per cent, accelerate simulations by up to 10x, and enhance multi-physics characteristics like efficiency, safety, acoustics and aerodynamics by up to 30 per cent. 

Over the years, I’ve met a lot of startups trying to gain automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) as customers. It’s a notoriously difficult market to crack due to the long innovation cycles, a general conservatism when it comes to financially committing to trying new things and many competing priorities. 

Baqué shared the value of offering a compelling solution to an existing problem:

“Once they grasp how easily our technology can be integrated to overcome their existing challenges and accelerate their time-to-market, their interest significantly increases. This approach has been instrumental in our growth.

Moreover, we leverage our expertise in specific application areas. Initially focusing on the application’s value proposition, we guide customers towards understanding the application itself and the underlying technology.

This approach effectively demonstrates the potential for applying our technology across their broader product portfolio.”

Product development teams across OPmobility’s multiple business units now leverage Neural Concept’s platform to embed “Engineering Intelligence” into their engineering processes. This integration enables them to deliver advanced design solutions tailored to complex automotive challenges. 

According to Baqué:

“Integrating AI into all aspects of product design is the new competitive edge for OEMs and Tier 1s, and it is also the key to solving global challenges with safer, more efficient and sustainable products.” 

OPmobility is showcasing Neural Concept’s tech at CES 2025 via a novel fuel tank design for pressurised hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) tanks.

 During vehicle acceleration and deceleration, fuel in conventional fuel tanks moves from side to side, causing unwanted noise. Simulating this complex phenomenon in PHEV fuel tanks previously required approximately 12 hours per design, making rapid design iteration and optimisation impossible. 

Baqué shared:

“Our initial focus was on enhancing design processes. The first successful production application involved mitigating sloshing noise within fuel tanks. In hybrid vehicles, the engine noise no longer masks other sounds, necessitating the elimination of sloshing noise.

OPmobility effectively utilised our platform to reduce this noise, demonstrating its value. Subsequently, they began exploring broader applications for our technology.

Currently, we are at a pivotal stage, actively training their top CAE and simulation engineers to not only utilise AI effectively but also to adapt and customise it to their specific requirements independently.”

Using Neural Concept’s 3D AI platform, engineers at OPmobility can now simulate and predict 3D acoustics pressure changes and fluid dynamics in seconds, rather than days. This capability delivers immediate multi-physics insights, speeds up design iterations, and optimises product development. As a result, OPmobility can minimise noise, and significantly reduce time to market.

In November, Neural Concept integrated its platform with the latest integration of the NVIDIA Omniverse Blueprint, which creates real-time computer-aided engineering digital twins. This means Neural Concept OEM customers will soon gain access to NVIDIA Omniverse APIs for advanced real-time visualisation and optimisation capabilities for product design.

The blueprint will further enhance Neural Concept’s 3D AI platform, helping users drive down development costs and energy usage, and accelerate product innovation while achieving an even faster time to market.

With usecases as diverse as electric vehicles, next-generation aircraft, and power-plant components, Neural Concept is in prime position to drive the next wave of advancements in engineering, enabling OEMs to create safer, more sustainable, and high-performance products across a wide range of sectors.