Altair today announced the most significant software update release in the company’s history. All of Altair’s software products have been updated with advancements in user experience and countless new features, including intuitive workflows that empower users to streamline product development, allowing customers to get to market faster.

The software update release expands on the number of solutions available for designers, engineers, data analysts, IT and HPC professionals, facility managers, and more to drive better decisions and accelerate the pace of innovation. It broadens the scope of the new user experience, enables access to more physics, data analytics, and machine learning, and makes the Altair software delivery method more flexible and accessible.

“Our teams are always driven to develop and provide access to a range of different technologies that enable our customers to break through complex problems, and explore and discover on their own terms. This software update release is the largest collection of our applications for design, simulation, and data analytics,” said James Scapa, Chairman, Founder and chief executive officer of Altair.

Some of the most notable highlights enhance and bring new capabilities to the needs aligned to the following applications:

·   Structures

o   Altair HyperWorks™ – new interface to Altair’s solution for high-fidelity computer-aided engineering (CAE) modeling and visualization, making learning easy and productivity high

o   New subsystem entity for modular model configuration

o   Altair SimLab™ – fatigue optimization

o   Altair OptiStruct™ ­– includes the addition of new explicit solution and expanded implicit non-linear solutions including 2D axisymmetry

o   Altair SimSolid™ – includes advanced 3D seam weld connections to further improve speed

o   Altair Radioss™ – employs a dramatic reduction in runtimes for virtual drop testing of electronics devices
 

·   Fluids and Thermal

o   HyperWorks CFD – provides engineers and experienced computational fluid dynamics (CFD) specialists with the most productive CFD pre- and post-processing capabilities to-date

o   Altair AcuSolve™ – GPU acceleration yields 3-4 times increased speed while also supporting nucleate boiling, radiation, condensation/evaporation and multiphase fluid-structure interaction (FSI)

o   Altair ultraFluidX™ – includes a new, more accurate wall model and overset grid technique

o   Altair nanoFluidX™ – is three times faster than the previous version
 

·   Industrial Design and Structures

o   Altair Inspire™ integration of Altair SimSolid™ solver includes support and connector reaction forces, instantaneous reaction time modeling large PolyNURBS models, and improved geometry generation from optimization

o   Inspire Studio – advanced morphing of any geometry type
 

·   Manufacturing

o   3D printing simulation available in Inspire with new unit cell lattice generation

·   Electromagnetics and Multiphysics

o   SimLab – electric motor modeling and coupling with AcuSolve and Altair Flux™; accommodates ECAD file import (ODB++)

o   Altair Feko™ – provides a component library tightly integrated with CADFEKO

o   Altair FluxMotor™ now includes thermal and acoustics evaluation

o   Flux includes several enhancements including those for modeling iron losses and skew type motors
 

·   Systems Modeling

o   Altair Activate™ – performs multi-physics system modeling with hardware-in-the-loop and Internet of Things (IoT) for digital twin development

o   Integration of EDEM bulk material modeling with multibody dynamics simulation and hydraulics ideal for heavy equipment and agricultural applications

o   Altair MotionView™ – has a two-wheeler vehicle dynamics library for motorcycles and scooters

o   Altair Compose™ – OpenMatrix Language available in Jupyter Notebook

o   Altair Embed™ – supports three additional target and two additional target families from ST Micro, VRTOS code modifications for MISRA compliance, and OpenCV DNN (Deep Neural Network) module integration

 

·   Data Analytics

o   Recent release of Altair Panopticon™ – platform for user-driven monitoring of real-time data – includes major update of cloud-based deployment, enabling users to build, modify, and share custom-designed functions and content easily via standard web browsers; hotfix to enable deployment at Nomura

o   Altair Knowledge Hub™ – improved messages for troubleshooting and robustness; security hardening; more flexible Windows deployment; deployment on Azure; transformations including continuous binning and lookup join (refactoring for performance) and more 

o   Altair Monarch™ – complex Excel input support – "Excel Trapping"; PDF extraction improvements; user experience and UI improvements; enhanced column list and more

o   Altair Knowledge Studio™ – new features including Keras model, model stacking, and pivot table; variable transformations node improvements with dataset and variable preview and re-ordering 

·        Smart Product Development

o   Altair SmartWorks™ – major re-architecture of the edge orchestration and augmentation; ability to validate the edge application in real-time environments and deploy at scale 

·        HPC and Cloud

o   Altair Access™ – updated “work from home” features; more responsive 3D remote visualization; internationalization; better job resource charts; two-factor authentication and single sign-on; share support on mobile 

o   Altair Accelerator™ – EDA workload support on AWS (with Rapid Scaling), Microsoft Azure, and GCP; 10x faster for dynamic workloads; container improvements; REST query API; IPv6

o   Altair PBS Professional® – scalability improvements towards exascale; Cray Shasta support; container enhancements for converged AI+HPC workloads; better system maintenance support. (MT)

Coretura, a 50:50 joint venture between Daimler Truck and Volvo Group, has entered into an engineering agreement with Accenture to accelerate the development of a software platform for commercial vehicles.

The company, headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, currently employs over 100 engineers. It continues to recruit specialists in system architecture, high-performance computing and cloud infrastructure to support its roadmap, which targets the delivery of its first commercialised products towards the end of the decade.

Coretura intends to create a single software platform, language and standard for trucks, buses and other heavy-duty transport vehicles. The platform is designed to support vehicle lifecycles of more than 15 years, moving the industry away from projects that require custom software development for each new vehicle.

As the engineering partner, Accenture will support development across several areas, including:

• Electrical and Electronic (E/E) architecture
• Software abstraction and hardware integration
• Embedded software, middleware, and cybersecurity
• Functional safety and cloud infrastructure

The platform aims to provide a reusable software stack to lower costs and standardise time-to-market for global manufacturers. For fleet operators, the system is designed to allow for continuous software updates and performance upgrades delivered over the air.

Johan Lunden, CEO, Coretura, said, “Our purpose is to advance mobility at the speed of ideas, and that takes depth. Building a full-stack SDV platform demands expertise across embedded software, middleware, cybersecurity, and functional safety, all designed for vehicles with lifecycles measured in decades. Accenture’s reinvention capabilities let us move faster without compromising the standards our customers depend on. This is acceleration, not course correction.”

Rainer Oder, SDV Embedded Software Lead, Accenture, added, “Helping the industry advance software-defined vehicles is a priority for Accenture. Our landmark collaboration with Coretura is designed to change embedded software engineering for automotive platforms. Together, we are looking to solve the challenges of a fully software-defined architecture – addressing critical areas such as hardware abstraction, API management and AI-based engineering optimisations.”

The ePlane Company has announced the completion of its full-scale electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, the e200X. Designated PT-01, the prototype has successfully integrated all core subsystems into a single structure, marking the transition from design and simulation to physical testing.

The e200X is designed as a single airframe versatile enough to serve three distinct markets – Passenger Air Taxi, Urban Cargo Carrier and Air Ambulance.

The company emphasises that the aircraft was designed to be compact, allowing it to integrate into existing urban infrastructure without requiring significant city redesigns.

Developed at the company's own facilities in Chennai, the e200X features in-house development of major components, including propellers, airframe structure, landing gear and battery pack.

This vertical integration provides the company with control over performance, manufacturing costs, and iteration speed, having reached this milestone on approximately USD 21 million in funding.

With assembly complete, the e200X will now undergo ground testing, flight testing and certification.

Prof. Satya Chakravarthy, Founder, The ePlane Company, said, "We set out to build an electric aircraft to a world-class benchmark, engineered and manufactured in depth in India for the World.  We deliberately designed the e200X to be compact, because an aircraft that asks a city to rebuild itself around it will not solve the problem it was built to solve. The same airframe can move people as an air taxi, carry goods as a cargo aircraft, and save lives as an air ambulance, and it can do all three using the infrastructure cities already have. That combination of real capability and capital efficiency is how we intend to compete, and win, in markets around the world.”

The company’s board includes prominent figures such as Vishesh Rajaram (Speciale Invest), Eash Sundaram (JetBlue) and Aditya Ghosh (Homage, Akasa Air). The venture, incubated at IIT Madras, has also received international recognition, including being showcased at Bharat Innovates 2026 and featured in Nvidia Founder Jensen Huang’s GTC keynote.

Chinese technology company Xiaomi has marked a new milestone for its automotive product offering with its electric vehicle.

The company has announced a significant milestone in autonomous vehicle technology by completing the first official autonomous lap of the Nurburgring Nordschleife circuit in Germany with the Xiaomi YU7 GT, equipped with a Track Package, navigating the 20.8 km circuit without a human driver, recording a lap time of 10:29.483.

Following this performance, the Nurburgring has introduced a new official vehicle category: Autonomous Driving (under Electric Vehicles).

The Xiaomi YU7 GT autonomously navigated all 73 corners of the Nordschleife, managing 300 metres of elevation change and varying road surface conditions. The performance was driven by Xiaomi’s autonomous driving system, which integrates the Xiaomi XLA architecture and the MiMo-Embodied foundation model introduced in March 2026. The end-to-end architecture enabled the vehicle to coordinate steering, braking and power delivery in real-time, maintaining stability under high-speed and high-load conditions.

Xiaomi’s autonomous driving programme has evolved since the 2024 launch of Xiaomi HAD. The current system moves beyond simple behaviour imitation toward autonomous decision-making and deeper environmental interpretation. The company stated that the Nurburgring project serves as a critical testing ground to collect data for refining vehicle dynamics modelling, control strategy optimisation and safety redundancy mechanisms.

This achievement underscores Xiaomi’s commitment to advancing artificial intelligence in the automotive sector through rigorous real-world validation.

QuantumScape Corporation has announced a multi-year joint research agreement with Honda R&D Co., a subsidiary of Honda Motor Co.

The collaboration focuses on advancing QuantumScape’s solid-state lithium-metal battery platform, including the development of associated manufacturing processes.

This agreement follows a successful technology evaluation period during which Honda conducted a technical study and competitive benchmarking of QuantumScape’s battery platform.

Atsushi Ogawa, Chief Operating Officer, Research Center of Excellence, Honda R&D Co, said, “QS technology demonstrated compelling and unique advantages during our evaluation. We see potential for QS technology to add value across a range of applications, including automotive, and we are excited to move forward into the next phase of our partnership.”

Dr. Siva Sivaram, CEO and President, QuantumScape, added, “Honda is a leading global automaker renowned for its engineering excellence and product quality across automotive and other applications worldwide, and its evaluation represents one of the most rigorous assessments of our technology to date. This agreement reflects the growing confidence in QS solid-state lithium-metal batteries to enable safer, higher-density energy storage.”