Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

Beyond CAD: How nTop Uses AI and Accelerated Computing to Enhance Product Design

11/04/2025

As a teenager, Bradley Rothenberg was obsessed with CAD: computer-aided design software.

Before he turned 30, Rothenberg channeled that interest into building a startup, nTop, which today offers product developers - across vastly different industries - fast, highly iterative tools that help them model and create innovative, often deeply unorthodox designs.

One of Rothenberg's key insights has been how closely iteration at scale and innovation correlate - especially in the design space.

He also realized that by creating engineering software for GPUs, rather than CPUs - which powered (and still power) virtually every CAD tool - nTop could tap into parallel processing algorithms and AI to offer designers fast, virtually unlimited iteration for any design project. The result: almost limitless opportunities for innovation.

Product designers of all stripes took note.

A decade after its founding, nTop - a member of the NVIDIA Inception program for cutting-edge startups - now employs more than 100 people, primarily in New York City, where it's headquartered, as well as in Germany, France and the U.K. - with plans to grow another 10% by year's end.

Its computation design tools autonomously iterate alongside designers, spitballing different virtual shapes and potential materials to arrive at products, or parts of a product, that are highly performant. It's design trial and error at scale.

As a designer, you frequently have all these competing goals and questions: If I make this change, will my design be too heavy? Will it be too thick? Rothenberg said. When making a change to the design, you want to see how that impacts performance, and nTop helps evaluate those performance changes in real time.

Ocado used nTop software to redesign its 600 series robot to be far lighter and sturdier than earlier versions. U.K.-based supermarket chain Ocado, which builds and deploys autonomous robots, is one of nTop's biggest customers.

Ocado differentiates itself from other large European grocery chains through its deep integration of autonomous robots and grocery picking. Its office-chair-sized robots speed around massive warehouses - approaching the size of eight American football fields - at around 20 mph, passing within a millimeter of one another as they pick and sort groceries in hive-like structures.

In early designs, Ocado's robots often broke down or even caught fire. Their weight also meant Ocado had to build more robust - and more expensive - warehouses.

Using nTop's software, Ocado's robotics team quickly redesigned 16 critical parts in its robots, cutting the robot's overall weight by two-thirds. Critically, the redesign took around a week. Earlier redesigns that didn't use nTop's tools took about four months.

Prototypes of the 600 series robot were printed out using 3D printers for fast-turn testing. Ocado created a more robust version of its robot that was an order of magnitude cheaper and faster, Rothenberg said. Its designers went through these rapid design cycles where they could press a button and the entire robot's structure would be redesigned overnight using nTop, prepping it for testing the next day.

The Ocado use case is typical of how designers use nTop's tools.

nTop software runs hundreds of simulations analyzing how different conditions might impact a design's performance. Insights from those simulations are then fed back into the design algorithm, and the entire process restarts. Designers can easily tweak their designs based on the results, until the iterations land on an optimal result.

nTop has begun integrating AI models into its simulation workloads, along with an nTop customer's bespoke design data into its iteration process. nTop uses the NVIDIA Modulus framework, NVIDIA Omniverse platform and NVIDIA CUDA-X libraries to train and infer its accelerated computing workloads and AI models.

We have neural networks that can be trained on the geometry and physics of a company's data, Rothenberg said. If a company has a specific way of engineering the structure of a car, it can construct that car in nTop, train up an AI in nTop and very quickly iterate through different versions of the car's structure or any future car designs by accessing all the data the model is already trained on.

nTop's tools have wide applicability across industries.

A Formula 1 design team used nTop to virtually model countless versions of heat sinks before choosing an unorthodox but highly performant sink for its car.

Traditionally, heat sinks are made of small, uniform pieces of metal aligned side by side to maximize metal-air interaction and, therefore, heat exchange and cooling.

A heat sink designed for a Formula 1 race car offered 3x more surface area and was 25% lighter than previous sinks. The engineers iterated with nTop on an undulating multilevel sink that maximized air-metal interaction even as it optimized aerodynamics, which is crucial for racing.

The new heat sink achieved 3x the surface area for heat transfer than earlier models, while cutting weight by 25%, delivering superior cooling performance and enhanced efficiency.

Going forward, nTop anticipates its implicit modeling tools will drive greater adoption from product designers who want to work with an iterative partner trained on their company's proprietary data.

We work with many different partners who develop designs, run a bunch of simulations using models and then optimize for the best results, said Rothenberg. The advances they're making really speak for themselves.

Learn more about nTop's product design workflow and work with partners.
LINK: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/ntop-computer-aided-design-ai-accelerate...
See more stories from nvidia

More from Nvidia

22/05/2025

Sale Into Summer With 40% Off GeForce NOW Six-Month Performance Memberships

GeForce NOW is turning up the heat this summer with a hot new deal. For a limited time, save 40% on six-month Performance memberships and enjoy premium GeForce ...

21/05/2025

NVIDIA and SAP Bring AI Agents to the Physical World

As robots increasingly make their way to the largest enterprises' manufacturing plants and warehouses, the need for access to critical business and operatio...

20/05/2025

Siemens Makes Factory Floors Smarter With Industrial AI

Industrial AI is transforming how factories operate, innovate and scale. The convergence of AI, simulation and digital twins is poised to unlock new levels of ...

19/05/2025

NVIDIA and Microsoft Accelerate Agentic AI Innovation, From Cloud to PC

Agentic AI is redefining scientific discovery and unlocking research breakthroughs and innovations across industries. Through deepened collaboration, NVIDIA and...

19/05/2025

NVIDIA Research Breakthroughs Put Advanced Robots in Motion

Across robot training and development, NVIDIA Research is uncovering breakthroughs in areas such as multimodal generative AI and synthetic data generation. The...

19/05/2025

NVIDIA and Microsoft Advance Development on RTX AI PCs

Generative AI is transforming PC software into breakthrough experiences - from digital humans to writing assistants, intelligent agents and creative tools. NVI...

18/05/2025

NVIDIA CEO Envisions AI Infrastructure Industry Worth Trillions of Dollars'

Electricity. The Internet. Now it's time for another major technology, AI, to sweep the globe. NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang took the stage at a pack...

18/05/2025

NVIDIA Expands Omniverse Blueprint for AI Factory Digital Twins With New Ecosystem Integrations, Development Tools

Empowering engineering teams with more tools for building AI factories, NVIDIA t...

18/05/2025

AI Blueprint for Video Search and Summarization Now Available to Deploy Video Analytics AI Agents Across Industries

The age of video analytics AI agents is here. Video is one of the defining feat...

18/05/2025

Semiconductor Industry Accelerates Design Manufacturing With NVIDIA Blackwell and CUDA-X

TSMC, Cadence, KLA, Siemens and Synopsys are advancing semiconductor manufacturi...

18/05/2025

NVIDIA Grace CPU C1 Gains Broad Support in Edge, Telco and Storage

NVIDIA is highlighting significant momentum for its new Grace CPU C1 this week at the COMPUTEX trade show in Taipei, with a strong showing of support from key o...

18/05/2025

NVIDIA-Powered Supercomputer to Enable Quantum Leap for Taiwan Research

Researchers across Taiwan are tackling complex challenges in AI development, climate science and quantum computing. Their work will soon be boosted by a new sup...

18/05/2025

That's One Smart Hospital! Taiwan Medical Centers Deploy Life-Saving Innovations With NVIDIA System-Builder Partners

Leading healthcare organizations across the globe are using agentic AI, robotics...

18/05/2025

NVIDIA Grows Quantum Computing Ecosystem With Taiwan Manufacturers and Supercomputing

Quantum computing promises to shorten the path to solving some of the world'...

15/05/2025

Into the Omniverse: Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation Finds Smoothest Flow With AI-Driven Digital Twins

Editor's note: This post is part of Into the Omniverse, a series focused on ...

15/05/2025

Exploring the Revenue-Generating Potential of AI Factories

AI is creating value for everyone - from researchers in drug discovery to quantitative analysts navigating financial market changes. The faster an AI system ca...

15/05/2025

Time to Slay: DOOM: The Dark Ages' Looms on GeForce NOW

Steel clashes and war drums thunder as a new age of battle dawns - one that will test even the mightiest Slayer. This GFN Thursday, DOOM: The Dark Ages - the b...

14/05/2025

Visa Makes Payments Personalized and Secure With AI

Think tap to pay - but smarter and safer. Visa is tapping into AI to enhance services for its global network of customers, focused on fraud prevention, personal...

14/05/2025

Press Play on Don Diablo's Music Video - Created With NVIDIA RTX-Powered Generative AI

Electronic music icon Don Diablo is known for pushing the boundaries of music, v...

13/05/2025

NVIDIA Partners Showcase Cutting-Edge Robotic and Industrial AI Solutions at Automate 2025

As the manufacturing industry faces challenges - such as labor shortages, reshor...

13/05/2025

How Reasoning AI Agents Transform High-Stakes Decision Making

Editor's note: This post is part of the AI On blog series, which explores the latest techniques and real-world applications of agentic AI, chatbots and copi...

12/05/2025

NVIDIA Scores COMPUTEX Best Choice Awards

NVIDIA today received multiple accolades at COMPUTEX's Best Choice Awards, in recognition of innovation across the company. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 GPU...

08/05/2025

Wildfire Prevention: AI Startups Support Prescribed Burns, Early Alerts

Artificial intelligence is helping identify and treat diseases faster with better results for humankind. Natural disasters like wildfires are next. Fires in th...

08/05/2025

Join the Family: GeForce NOW Welcomes 2K's Acclaimed Mafia' Franchise to the Cloud

Calling all wiseguys - 2K's acclaimed Mafia franchise is available to stream...

08/05/2025

LM Studio Accelerates LLM Performance With NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPUs and CUDA 12.8

As AI use cases continue to expand - from document summarization to custom software agents - developers and enthusiasts are seeking faster, more flexible ways t...

07/05/2025

Cadence Taps NVIDIA Blackwell to Accelerate AI-Driven Engineering Design and Scientific Simulation

A new supercomputer offered by Cadence, a leading provider of technology for ele...

07/05/2025

NVIDIA's Rama Akkiraju on How AI Platform Architects Help Bridge Business Vision and Technical Execution

Enterprises across industries are exploring AI to rethink problem-solving and re...

02/05/2025

NVIDIA Experts Share Top 5 Tips for Standing Out in the AI Job Market

With graduation season approaching, a new cohort of students is embarking on next steps, aiming to use their passions and skills to make a real, tangible impact...

01/05/2025

May the Cloud Be With You: GeForce NOW Unveils 21 New Games This Month

May brings more than just rainbows and sunshine - it's also time for fresh adventures and epic battles. This GFN Thursday spotlights 20 can't-miss games...

01/05/2025

Wandercraft Begins Clinical Trials for Physical AI-Powered Personal Exoskeleton

For Nicolas Simon, advancing the field of robotics is a personal mission that could change his siblings' lives. Two-thirds of Simon's family members us...

30/04/2025

From Kitchen to Drive-Thru: How Yum! Brands Is Accelerating Restaurant Innovation With AI

The quick-service restaurant (QSR) industry is being reinvented by AI. For exam...

30/04/2025

Control the Composition of AI-Generated Images With the NVIDIA AI Blueprint for 3D-Guided Generative AI

AI-powered image generation has progressed at a remarkable pace - from early exa...

28/04/2025

NVIDIA Brings Cybersecurity to Every AI Factory

As enterprises increasingly adopt AI, securing AI factories - where complex, agentic workflows are executed - has never been more critical. NVIDIA is bringing ...

28/04/2025

How Agentic AI Enables the Next Leap in Cybersecurity

Agentic AI is redefining the cybersecurity landscape - introducing new opportunities that demand rethinking how to secure AI while offering the keys to addressi...

28/04/2025

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Deploys Thousands of NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs for Agentic AI and Reasoning Models

Oracle has stood up and optimized its first wave of liquid-cooled NVIDIA GB200 N...

24/04/2025

NVIDIA Research at ICLR - Pioneering the Next Wave of Multimodal Generative AI

Advancing AI requires a full-stack approach, with a powerful foundation of computing infrastructure - including accelerated processors and networking technologi...

24/04/2025

All Roads Lead Back to Oblivion: Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered' Arrives on GeForce NOW

Get the controllers ready and clear the calendar - it's a jam-packed GFN Thu...

23/04/2025

How the Economics of Inference Can Maximize AI Value

As AI models evolve and adoption grows, enterprises must perform a delicate balancing act to achieve maximum value. That's because inference - the process ...

23/04/2025

Capital One Banks on AI for Financial Services

Financial services has long been at the forefront of adopting technological innovations. Today, generative AI and agentic systems are redefining the industry, f...

23/04/2025

Project G-Assist Plug-In Builder Lets Anyone Customize AI on GeForce RTX AI PCs

AI is rapidly reshaping what's possible on a PC - whether for real-time image generation or voice-controlled workflows. As AI capabilities grow, so does the...

23/04/2025

Enterprises Onboard AI Teammates Faster With NVIDIA NeMo Tools to Scale Employee Productivity

An AI agent is only as accurate, relevant and timely as the data that powers it....

22/04/2025

Keeping AI on the Planet: NVIDIA Technologies Make Every Day About Earth Day

Whether at sea, land or in the sky - even outer space - NVIDIA technology is helping research scientists and developers alike explore and understand oceans, wil...

22/04/2025

Chill Factor: NVIDIA Blackwell Platform Boosts Water Efficiency by Over 300x

Traditionally, data centers have relied on air cooling - where mechanical chillers circulate chilled air to absorb heat from servers, helping them maintain opti...

22/04/2025

Making Brain Waves: AI Startup Speeds Disease Research With Lab in the Loop

About 15% of the world's population - over a billion people - are affected by neurological disorders, from commonly known diseases like Alzheimer's and ...

17/04/2025

AI Bites Back: Researchers Develop Model to Detect Malaria Amid Venezuelan Gold Rush

Gold prospecting in Venezuela has led to a malaria resurgence, but researchers h...

17/04/2025

Spring Into Action With 11 New Games on GeForce NOW

As the days grow longer and the flowers bloom, GFN Thursday brings a fresh lineup of games to brighten the week. Dive into thrilling hunts and dark fantasy adv...

16/04/2025

Isomorphic Labs Rethinks Drug Discovery With AI

Isomorphic Labs is reimagining the drug discovery process with an AI-first approach. At the heart of this work is a new way of thinking about biology. Max Jade...

16/04/2025

Into the Omniverse: How Digital Twins Are Scaling Industrial AI

Editor's note: This post is part of Into the Omniverse, a series focused on how developers, 3D practitioners, and enterprises can transform their workflows ...

15/04/2025

Math Test? No Problems: NVIDIA Team Scores Kaggle Win With Reasoning Model

The final days of the AI Mathematical Olympiad's latest competition were a transcontinental relay for team NVIDIA. Every evening, two team members on oppos...

15/04/2025

Everywhere, All at Once: NVIDIA Drives the Next Phase of AI Growth

Every company and country wants to grow and create economic opportunity - but they need virtually limitless intelligence to do so. Working with its ecosystem pa...