The Electronic Design Automation (EDA) market is in urgent need of increased productivity amidst increasingly complex circuits and shortened product launch cycles. Coupled with labor shortages and tightening security regulations, there is a growing need for tools that enable design teams to respond efficiently. Keysight's announcement is significant in that it has safely applied AI to actual design environments to meet these industry demands.

On March 11, Keysight Technologies officially announced AI-based 'Chat' and 'Copilot' assistants for its ADS software. Both features accelerate design workflows based on natural language processing and operate in enterprise-grade on-premises security environments.

Technically, two assistants are configured in parallel. The 'Learning Assistant (Chat)' helps new users adapt by providing conversational answers to questions regarding ADS tool usage and applications. The 'Tool Assistant (Copilot)' improves operational efficiency by automating repetitive tasks in SIPro and RFPro simulation environments. Both features are based on language models fine-tuned with Keysight's electronic design expertise and are individually configurable to provide responses tailored to specific domains.

In terms of security, it is designed to prevent customer data from being leaked externally by adopting an on-premises deployment method. Provided as an add-on, it allows IT teams to directly control security policies and toolset selections, and enables compliance with regulations in each country.

The operating environment is based on commercial GPU hardware and supports Kubernetes and Red Hat OpenShift, enabling flexible deployment tailored to enterprise infrastructure. Existing ADS subscribers can use these features at no additional cost.

Nilesh Camdal, General Manager of EDA Design and Verification at Keysight, said, “The semiconductor industry faces the challenge of leveraging AI capabilities without compromising security,” adding, “By providing AI-enabled EDA tools in on-premises environments, design teams can safely improve their workflows.”

This update is included in 'ADS 2026 Update 1', and additional Copilot features are available through the Early Access Program. This demonstrates that the adoption of AI in the electronic design industry is moving beyond a mere experimental phase and establishing itself as a tool for actual productivity improvement.