The acquisition positions Cadence to capitalize on the physical AI opportunity, the company said.
SAN JOSE, Calif.—With its recent acquisition of Hexagon AB’s Design and Engineering business, Cadence significantly expanded its System Design and Analysis (SDA) portfolio, positioning the company to capitalize on the Physical AI opportunity, Cadence said in a release.
The acquisition is reported to accelerate Cadence’s Intelligent System Design strategy by combining its multiphysics portfolio with Hexagon D&E’s leadership in structural analysis, acoustics, and multibody dynamics.
Hexagon D&E’s flagship MSC Software tools—including MSC Nastran™ and Adams™—will be integrated with Cadence’s multiphysics portfolio, spanning electronics, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), and BETA CAE’s structural pre- and post-processing technologies. This will enable Cadence to “deliver a comprehensive end-to-end multiphysics simulation platform” that is expected to elevate the industry standard for integrated design and analysis tools and enable more seamless system level innovation, according to the release.
“This acquisition marks a major milestone in advancing our vision for intelligent system design,” said Anirudh Devgan, president and CEO of Cadence, in the release. “By combining our industry-leading computational software and AI-driven design expertise with MSC Software’s world-class structural and physics-based analysis technologies, we’re empowering customers to push the boundaries of what’s possible—from autonomous systems and advanced robotics to the future of transportation.”
The combined portfolio is said to further position Cadence at the forefront of the emerging Physical AI era by tightly coupling high-fidelity, physics-based simulation with AI-driven design exploration.
“This will enable customers to create virtual representations of real-world systems that accurately predict system behavior under complex operating conditions,” the release stated. “With advanced capabilities spanning motion, vibration, structural response, and fluid-structure interactions, engineers can generate richer, physically grounded data to train and validate AI models, improving the performance and reliability of intelligent vehicles and industrial systems.”
Cadence describes itself as “a market leader in AI and digital twins, pioneering the application of computational software to accelerate innovation in the engineering design of silicon to systems.”
“Our design solutions, based on Cadence’s Intelligent System Design strategy, are essential for the world’s leading semiconductor and systems companies to build their next-generation products, from chips to full electromechanical systems that serve a wide range of markets, including hyperscale computing, mobile communications, automotive, aerospace, industrial, life sciences, and robotics,” the company said in the release.