Cadence unveils Nvidia-backed AI models that chipmakers can run in-house

Cadence Design Systems on Monday launched a portfolio of AI models tuned to help design computer chips, deepening its partnership with Nvidia and diverging from rival Synopsys’s recent deal with OpenAI.

Both companies make software used to design computing chips – a process that involves arranging billions of transistors precisely to meet cost and performance targets – and are racing to have AI “agents” use those tools on behalf of human engineers to speed up the process.

The new suite, called Cadence Maestro, introduced on Monday, was built in part on Nvidia’s open-weight Nemotron model and secured with Nvidia’s OpenShell safety technology, the companies said.