Last Day: Discounted Registration, Free Tickets + Student Volunteers
CDFAM Computational Design Symposium, Barcelona, April 8-9, 2026
Last Day for Discounted Registration
Today is the final day to register for CDFAM Barcelona at the discounted rate of €800.
After today, the price moves to €1,000. The symposium runs April 8-9, 2026, at the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB), a research facility located directly on the Mediterranean waterfront.
The program is complete. Two full days of technical presentations and case studies spanning computational design, AI-driven engineering, advanced manufacturing, and architectural systems.
Program Overview
The speaker roster covers a serious cross-section of where computational design and engineering AI are being applied in practice. A partial list:
The April 8th keynote will be delivered by Nike’s Yuan Mu on computational fabrication and algorithmically designed textiles with performance driven toolpathing for Flyknit and 3D printing.
NVIDIA’s Pablo Hermoso Moreno will present on AI surrogate models and agentic CAE workflows, drawing on his background in Formula 1 aerodynamics and cloud-scale AI deployment.
Nico Haag of PhysicsX will discuss the move from narrow surrogates toward large physics models, with external aerodynamics as the concrete case.
Quercus Hernandez of Emmi AI will present on large engineering models for injection moulding and an open-source framework for deploying engineering AI at industrial scale.
Max Gaedtke and Markus Lempke of nTop and Siemens Energy present a closed-loop parametric optimization workflow for turbine blade internal cooling, combining nTop’s implicit geometry engine with a GPU-native conjugate heat transfer solver that cuts time-to-solution by roughly 200x versus conventional finite-volume methods.
Pratap Ranade of Arena AI presents on building a foundation model for electromagnetism to accelerate hardware development across semiconductor, aerospace, and automotive applications, one of the harder unsolved problems in domain-specific engineering AI.
Michael Rosam of Quix presents on consolidating engineering test data and automating R&D analysis workflows, targeting the time lost to fragmented data and manual reporting across hardware development cycles.
Andrew Sartorelli and Tilman Steininger of Synera present across two sessions: the first examining practical AI agent applications in engineering workflows, from requirements extraction to automated simulation setup and reporting; the second delivered jointly with Juan De Dios Escribano Felguera of SEAT-CUPRA, demonstrating how computational design and automation are being applied to Body-in-White development in automotive production.
On the architecture and built environment side, Hao (Richard) Zhang of Augmenta will present on functional AI for 3D design automation, with case studies including the first buildings in the world with AI-generated electrical systems.
Verena Vogler of McNeel Europe will introduce a new ecological simulation framework for Rhino and Grasshopper.
Claudia Valverde of the University of Stuttgart’s IntCDC will present on architected porous structures designed to support thermal comfort for cavity-nesting wild bees in building envelopes, which is either a very niche research topic or a preview of where performance-driven design for and with autonomous agentic AI is headed. Possibly both.
Other confirmed speakers include representatives from Siemens Digital Industries, SimScale, ToffeeX, Synera, Gravity Sketch, Fraunhofer IGD, Tech Soft 3D, Saxion Hogeschool, Compute Maritime, BeyondMath, Cognitive Design Systems, Istari Digital, Pasteur Labs, Rafinex, Generative Engineering, Metisec, Romantic Technology, AiA Life Designers, Palace 3D, and David Burpee Design + Sequence Soles.
Day one of the Barcelona event closes with a networking session on the roof deck overlooking the ocean.
The full schedule is at cdfam.com/barcelona-2026.
Register Today
Discounted registration is €800 and closes today, March 15. Standard registration is €1,000 and is available until April 5.
Academic registration is €450 and also closes April 5. Group rates are available.
Contact info@cdfam.com for invoicing, direct transfer, or group discount requests.
Register at cdfam.com/register.
Student Volunteers
We are still accepting student volunteer applications for CDFAM Barcelona.
Volunteers assist with event logistics across both days and receive full access to the program in exchange.
Roles include attendee check-in, session support, technical setup, documentation, and AV support during the sessions.
If you are a current student in design, engineering, architecture, or a related field, and you are available for both days, this is a fantastic way to attend a professional symposium that would otherwise cost €800. We do not cover transport or accomodation, but you will receive a limited edition t-shirt and our eternal thanks.
Ticket Giveaway
The tag-a-colleague giveaway also closes today.
Head to the CDFAM LinkedIn post, tag a colleague in the comments. If you both follow CDFAM, you are both entered to win complimentary registrations.
Enter as many times as you like. The winner is drawn today.
Giveaway post: linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7438951785626685440
