What's New? In CAD

Opinion

Luminary (@Luminary_Cloud) does simulation analysis in the cloud, claiming to be 100x faster than desktop software, because it runs on 100 or more GPUs. See the figure above and the Web site at https://www.luminarycloud.com.

Former Autodesk co-ceo Amar Hanspal and former cto Brian Matthews, along with $46 million in funding, are working at writing the "next-generation design platform for buildings" by means of cloud-based 3D CAD with some machine learning and AI. They've been working on it for about two years their company Motif hopes to launch the software in mid-2025.?

In my opinion, it sounds to me like the Onshape version of BIM, of which there are several firms already in the AEC-for-cloud niche. https://www.motif.io/blog.html

Monica Schnitker reports in the biggest acquisitions currently happening in CAD:

• Emerson Electric collecting the rest of Aspen Tech it doesn’t already own for $7.2 billion
• Siemens gathering up Altair at $11 billion
• Synopsys swooping up Ansys for $35 billion?

https://schnitgercorp.com/2025/01/27/emerson-to-buy-rest-of-aspentech/amp/

Here is the software I use to make my computers more secure:

• Cloudflare Warp (https://one.one.one.one/)
• 1.1.1.1 for DNS lookup on all computing devices
• 2x cloud backup thru pCloud (https://www.pcloud.com/) and IceDrive (https://icedrive.net/) because they have pay once, use forever plans

In Web browsers:

• SuperAgent automatically deals with cookie permissions and popups (https://super-agent.com/)
• Ghostery blocks ads, tracking, and consents (https://www.ghostery.com/)

Germany’s Comstruct raises $13 million from venture capitalists for its software that aims to simplify the procurement process of construction firms. German-only Web site is at https://www.comstruct.com.

British engineering firms Smiths and IMI have been hacked, within days of each other in the past week. They are working to recover affected systems following unauthorized access to their networks.

TechCrunch reports that Trace.Space from Latvia, which is an “AI-driven platform has been designed for engineers to develop industrial products” has raised $4 million in initial funding.

I don’t know if the reporter misunderstands the market or if he was given odd information, as the article states:

“Currently, legacy software platforms from companies like IBM and Dassault [Systemes] are generally deployed… IBM’s tools for this were designed in the late 80s. It’s a desktop client and needs to be installed on every computer.”

More info at https://www.trace.space.

"It’s not just DeepSeek, all AI is censored."

-Sean Thomas