From Start-up to Global Player
The starting point of PI is a unique method in the field of machine learning, which overcomes known problems of artificial neural networks. From the very beginning, there have already been inquiries from large German engineering companies for development projects, and we also joined several research projects that investigated the application of artificial intelligence in the fields of medicine, chemistry and aviation keeping us busy for some time. Originally, our claim was to offer an “AI for everyone”, as in our case no prior knowledge of machine learning techniques is required to use the algorithms. In the software package STOCHOS©, all methods are combined in an universally applicable tool, and in contrast to neural networks, the ML methods do not have to be adapted to every new problem.
Unfortunately, we were quickly faced with a chicken-and-egg problem: our contact persons in the companies that carried out the evaluation of STOCHOS© were usually those people who typically came from the classic neural networks and often had no interest in introducing other methods. An exception was made from the very beginning by Bosch, who, as is well known, had begun investing in artificial intelligence on a broad front already at a very early stage.
At the Ansys WOST conference at the end of June 2023 in Weimar, finally CADFEM became aware of us in their search for partners in the field of artificial intelligence. After that, everything actually happened very quickly: since the end of 2023, we are a new member of the group and suddenly, thanks to CADFEM’s long-standing and intensive relationships with its customers, we are talking directly to the actual potential users of AI within the companies, and we can say that the feedback so far has been overwhelming. Perhaps also because many leading companies that already use simulation in development have already tested several approaches within the current AI hype and could therefore quickly grasp the advantages of STOCHOS©.
Our participation in the CADFEM Conference Darmstadt in April this year became another important step and we are extremely pleased that since then we had been able to talk to so many engineering and AI specialists from international market leaders on an equal footing about the implementation of ML in work processes. In fact, since the conference, we have been able to carry out a whole series of PoCs on simulation and experimental data as well as combinations of both data types in areas such as component optimization, process control, simulations in chemistry and many other applications, and we receive consistent feedback that the implementation with STOCHOS© is extremely easy and that therefore our partners can quickly use the methods on their own for further internal developments.
Since the beginning, our international team of employees always had a strong interest in projects with companies outside the DACH region. With the help of the many branches of the CADFEM Group, within just a few months, we have now been able to start projects with companies in Europe, the USA, India and Southeast Asia, which we are extremely pleased about.
Looking back, after half a year, we can safely say that thanks to the support of CADFEM, we made the well-deserved leap from a software start-up onto the world stage of artificial intelligence in a very short time and remain confident that probabilistic methods will continue to prevail.
Nils Odenthal,
Managing Director at PI Probaligence GmbH
Read the full Journal here:
https://probaligence.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/CADFEMJournal2024-Nachhaltigkeit.pdf
