Digital twin expertise is hovering in its use circumstances in the mean time. Cadence Design Programs, a long-standing heavyweight in computational software program, is increasing its digital twin expertise past semiconductors.
Whereas Cadence has lengthy been recognized for its work in EDA (digital design automation), the corporate is now utilizing its computational horsepower to simulate programs that vary from drug molecules to city visitors patterns.
In an interview with AIM, Jayashankar Narayanankutty, the group director at Cadence, mentioned the corporate’s increasing digital twin technique and its implications throughout sectors.
“At Cadence, we didn’t set out to do that—however over time, our capability to simulate billions of nodes concurrently developed into one thing much more highly effective,” Narayanankutty mentioned. “That’s what led us into digital twins, and the outcomes have been nothing in need of groundbreaking.”
Simulations to Metropolis-Scale Options
The corporate is now powering breakthroughs in drug discovery, reshaping knowledge centre infrastructure, and serving to India develop indigenous GPU capabilities.
“Digital twins can mannequin something, from a single human to a system of a number of machines,” he defined. “You’ll be able to take a look at ‘what-if’ eventualities in a simulated area as an alternative of experimenting in the true world.”
Digital twins are now not confined to simply engineering simulations. As Narayanankutty explains, “You foresee faults, optimise design, and iterate shortly.”
He added that this functionality isn’t simply educational. The implications are profound, whether or not managing a metropolis’s visitors grid, a manufacturing facility’s meeting line, or the cooling of next-generation AI knowledge centres.
When introduced into perspective by way of the cityscape of Bengaluru, Narayanankutty responded with developments that may very well be transformational.
“If Bangalore’s visitors system had been modelled as a digital twin, the enhancements in move, congestion administration, and real-time routing can be game-changing,” he famous.
In his keynote at GTC 2025, Jensen Huang underscored Cadence’s functionality, saying, “NVIDIA makes use of Cadence Actuality digital twins accelerated by CUDA and Omniverse libraries to simulate air and liquid cooling programs… real-time simulation lets us run large-scale what-if eventualities in seconds versus hours.”
The NVIDIA Chapter
Huang clarified, “The way forward for design will depend on digital ASC designers from Cadence’s AI framework, built-in seamlessly with NVIDIA’s fashions.”
The partnership between Cadence and NVIDIA lies on the coronary heart of the upcoming shift. With Blackwell, Cadence’s AI-driven simulations have been accelerated as much as 50 occasions, enabling real-time computation and evaluation, remodeling industries from healthcare to high-performance computing.
Huang known as this one of many greatest developments of the final 12 months. “Working with Cadence, Synopsys, Ansys, and all of the programs firms, we’ve now made it attainable for almost each necessary EDA and CAE library to be accelerated,” he mentioned.
The Cadence Actuality platform, accelerated by NVIDIA, simulates total programs, from knowledge centres to plane takeoffs, permitting for fast design iterations and improved power effectivity.
Reimagining Drug Discovery
Maybe Cadence’s most surprising software of digital twins is organic simulation. Utilizing its AI-powered Orion platform, the corporate can now simulate how medication are delivered to organic cells, a problem historically tackled by way of costly and time-consuming discipline trials.
“Now we have all the time been about computational software program,” Narayanankutty explains. “We all know how you can do the maths. We simulate billions of nodes and now are utilizing that to mannequin the perfect medium for delivering medication to organic cells.”
He elaborated that this sort of simulation historically takes a very long time. Nonetheless, by integrating AI with computational functionality, the corporate “can simulate eventualities which can be humanly inconceivable to duplicate by way of discipline assessments”.
Area assessments are normally restricted by time, value, and the variety of individuals, however AI permits overcoming these limitations. He additionally notes the corporate’s shift from being a code-based computational software program firm to working in a web-based AI setting.
The corporate believes it has caught the eye of stakeholders throughout the trade, who’re desirous about its achievements.
Digital Twins Inside Information Centres
“Right this moment, almost 20% of the world’s power is consumed by knowledge centres,” Narayanankutty famous. One among Cadence’s digital twins’ most tangible use circumstances is AI-driven knowledge centre design.
The corporate’s Actuality DC platform simulates knowledge centre operations to dynamically optimise cooling and power utilization, two of probably the most essential value elements in trendy computing.
“We assist design knowledge centres particular to the mannequin,” Narayanankutty mentioned. “Then we simulate them in actual time so power consumption decreases.”
Conventional knowledge centres apply uniform cooling, which ends up in inefficiencies like increased warmth in sure racks, decreasing efficiency, whereas overcooling in much less lively areas wastes power.
“With Actuality DC, we dynamically redirect assets to the place they’re wanted, reducing power use by as much as 30%.”
NVIDIA itself makes use of Cadence Actuality to optimise its AI factories. Huang famous, “Omniverse Blueprint connects with Cadence’s Actuality Digital Twin Platform to design and function AI factories.”
This partnership is already paying dividends, with firms like Schneider Electrical deploying these simulations to extend energy block effectivity and reliability in actual time.
Constructing an Indigenous Ecosystem
India is in the course of a semiconductor revival, and Cadence performs a foundational position in shaping its trajectory. With rising demand for home chipmaking and the federal government’s $10 billion push below the India Semiconductor Mission, the timing couldn’t be higher.
Its contributions to India’s indigenous GPU initiatives underscore the significance of digital twin expertise in scaling native {hardware} growth. “There’s no tribal information but in 3D IC design that ranges the enjoying discipline,” Narayanankutty mentioned.
“India has an actual probability to leap forward in these next-gen applied sciences.”
He highlights India’s readiness to maneuver from a service-based mannequin to a product-centric strategy. Digital twins are key to this transition, serving to simulate chiplets, optimise provide chains, and streamline manufacturing.
Cadence’s current acquisitions and divestitures are additional shaping its technique. The acquisition of Safe-IC strengthens its give attention to embedded safety, which is essential within the period of AI and IoT.
Its instruments are already made out there to startups below the Design Linked Incentive (DLI) scheme, whereas the corporate collaborates with over 350 universities throughout India. “We’re not simply serving to firms, we’re serving to form expertise and functionality,” he famous.
The geopolitical panorama, together with US-China commerce tensions and US tariff implications, has made provide chain resilience a precedence. Cadence’s capability to simulate and optimise provide chains by way of digital twin expertise presents shoppers a aggressive edge in unsure occasions.
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