Is AIE the next CAE?

CAx is the abbreviation for Computer-Aided Design (CAD), Engineering (CAE) and Manufacturing (CAM). It has continually evolved over the last 30 years. Recently, I have started to ask myself whether AIAx (Artificial Intelligence Aided Engineering) or in my opinion shorter and much better AIE (Artificially Intelligent Engineering) is becoming the next category of digital product development software.

The aim is for Artificial Intelligence to help manage the large, complex amounts of data involved in the digitalisation of the product development process that is currently ongoing all over the manufacturing industry. While numerical simulations are now widely used in design and development (creating massive data in some cases), significant expertise is still required in order to assess the results.

Recent advances in artificial intelligence improve and speed up this process. In particular, machine learning techniques can replace expensive and time-consuming physical tests and computational simulations to quickly and reliably predict how to create components with desired properties and how they will behave in specific circumstances. AI models can learn how properties of products and experimental parameters relate to real experimental results.

Evidence that this new categorical naming is catching on can be found already at automotive manufacturer Daimler and the University of Karlsruhe who have been collaborating in a 1.8 Million Euro project CAx goes AIAx or in this project of the University of Wyoming on Artificially Intelligent Manufacturing.