DeepPCB at Hardware Pioneers Max & PCB East 2025: A New Chapter in Smarter PCB Design

In April, InstaDeep’s DeepPCB team was thrilled to exhibit at two of the most influential hardware events of the year: Hardware Pioneers Max in London and PCB East in Boxborough, MA. Both gatherings brought together forward-thinking engineers, startups, and hardware leaders—all focused on one thing: building the future of electronics, faster and smarter.

A Defining Year for AI in Hardware and Printed-Circuit Boards

One thing was clear across both events: AI is no longer just a buzzword—it’s a priority. The Hardware Pioneers Max overarching theme —”Building a Smarter World. Together”—resonated deeply with our mission. Compared to previous years, the shift in interest was striking. Engineers, product teams, and founders weren’t just curious—they were looking for tools that can dramatically cut time-to-layout without sacrificing design intent or performance. Again, manual placement and routing fatigue is real. PCB design engineers shared how routing bottlenecks are slowing down their hardware development timelines. And finally, collaboration between EDA tools and AI is top-of-mind. Designers are excited about tools that can integrate seamlessly into their existing workflows.

Visitors to our booth were especially excited about DeepPCB’s ability to bring true intelligence to PCB design. From guided demos to real-time feedback, the message was clear: users are no longer satisfied with static tools—they want dynamic, AI-driven collaboration in their workflows. And DeepPCB is delivering exactly that.

Startups Are Driving API Demand

Another major theme? APIs are king—especially for startups. Companies we met were eager to explore how DeepPCB’s API could integrate into their own tech stacks. From automated design validation to design routing suggestions, the potential to build faster with DeepPCB at the core was a recurring topic of interest.

This aligns perfectly with our product vision: DeepPCB isn’t just a tool—it’s a platform. One that forward-thinking hardware teams can build on.

Solving a Critical Challenge: AI-driven Placement That Works

What stood out to attendees at Hardware Pioneers Max and PCB East was how DeepPCB delivers both placement and routing in a cohesive, production-ready solution.  For many PCB design engineers and the community we met on-site, the integrated nature of DeepPCB’s approach was seen as a practical and valuable differentiator. Our placement tool, built using deep reinforcement learning, handles design constraints and enables better routing, for instance by minimizing wire length to decoupling capacitors. This capability resonated strongly with attendees, who viewed it as a long-missing piece in the broader design automation puzzle—especially when it comes to accelerating time-to-layout without sacrificing quality.

Why DeepPCB Stands Out

DeepPCB is reshaping PCB development in four critical ways. First, its AI-accelerated placement and routing cuts design cycles from weeks to hours or minutes, enabling dramatically faster turnarounds. Second, it delivers smarter layouts, with designs optimized for signal integrity, power planes, and manufacturability constraints—without human trial-and-error. Third, its robust integration capabilities, including a solid API, allow teams to plug DeepPCB into their existing workflows with no disruption. Finally, DeepPCB offers advanced placement capabilities powered by reinforcement learning—an approach that is still rare and technically challenging.

At these events, we were especially inspired by the feedback and enthusiasm from the broader hardware and PCB design ecosystem. From early-stage founders to veteran engineers, the community is ready—and hungry—for the next generation of intelligent design tools. And we’re proud that DeepPCB is seen as a key enabler in this transformation.

Let’s Build the Future, Together

Whether you’re a startup automating early-stage designs or a global engineering team scaling complex systems, DeepPCB is here to help you move faster, design smarter, and stay ahead of the curve.  >> Curious about how DeepPCB can accelerate your PCB design process? Contact us now or try it for free and experience a smarter way to work—where AI handles the complexity so you can push more projects forward, faster.