Autodesk, AWS team up to promote new AI-enabled design technology

Autodesk and Amazon Web Services are teaming up to promote a new kind of design technology, called generative design, that helps designers explore all possible design variations for a product.

Generative design gives designers different options for their product designs based on their set of constraints -- such as materials being used, the product's weight or manufacturing methods. Leveraging the cloud and machine learning, it can quickly offer dozens or even hundreds of options.

In April, Autodesk incorporated generative design into its product development tool, Autodesk Fusion 360 Ultimate. In order to encourage its adoption, Autodesk and AWS are giving free cloud credits to 1,000 new subscribers to Fusion 360 Ultimate.

Autodesk customers already get 1,000 cloud credits with their Fusion 360 Ultimate subscription, which they can use to perform generative design studies in the cloud. With this promotion, new customers will get an additional 500 credits. The promotion kicks off on July 1.

"Generative design isn't just transformative for the product development process; it's a scalable technology with the potential to disrupt the manufacturing industry-- for the better," an Autodesk blog post said.

Customers already using generative design, Autodesk said, include GM, Airbus and Lightning Motorcycles.