Since 1933, Danfoss has lived by one unwavering principle: Push boundaries. Challenge assumptions. Engineer a better future.
This Danish family-owned company didn't build their reputation by playing it safe. They've spent nine decades developing advanced technologies that power everything from industrial automation to climate solutions.
But even for a company built on innovation, their latest breakthrough seemed almost too ambitious to believe.
What if artificial intelligence could revolutionize PCB design entirely?
Every PCB design engineer faces the same nightmare: component placement.
You're staring at a screen filled with hundreds—sometimes thousands—of components that need perfect positioning on a circuit board. One misplaced component means signal interference, electromagnetic noise, and costly redesigns that can set projects back weeks.
For Danfoss engineers, this bottleneck wasn't just time-consuming—it was limiting their ability to innovate at the speed their global customers demanded.
Danfoss' ambitious LEAP 2030 strategy placed AI at the center of everything. The vision was clear: Transform how engineers work, think, and innovate through intelligent automation.
Enter Cadence Allegro X AI—artificial intelligence purpose-built for PCB design optimization.
The experiment was audacious: Take on a complex PCB design project without asking anyone for help. Let AI handle the heavy lifting of component placement, routing optimization, and signal integrity management. The goal was to prove that AI could actually work in real-world engineering scenarios, or risk setbacks to the entire LEAP 2030 vision.
The results? Nothing short of revolutionary.
"My first try was a big bunch of guides in a board and I ended up at the first run with a very nice layout for my design. I would say that not much needed change. There were some simple things around the system blocks that I needed to correct, but nothing else."
"What prompted us for exploring Allegro X AI, it has helped us doing really good placement decisions around big ICs and getting the components really close, decoupling the layers. That's also really important so we are getting less noise over the whole board."
Since day one, Danfoss has been all about pushing the boundaries of what's possible, challenging assumptions for how to provide amazing products to customers that help engineer a better future for the world.
But the biggest barrier wasn't technical—it was cultural. Once engineers saw the results, adoption accelerated rapidly.
The results are clear:
