Quilter, the physics-driven AI platform for electronics design, has achieved what industry experts are calling a milestone in hardware development: the world’s first computer designed entirely by artificial intelligence. The project, dubbed Project Speedrun, allowed a single engineer to take a schematic to manufacturing-ready files in under a week—a process that traditionally requires months of collaboration, multiple redesigns, and extensive iteration.
The AI-designed system centers on the NXP i.MX 8M Mini processor, a complex chip commonly used in automotive infotainment, machine-vision systems, and safety devices. Remarkably, the computer was fully functional on its first boot, handling video calls, gaming, and other demanding workloads—a rare accomplishment in printed circuit board (PCB) design, where multiple respins are typically needed before a design is production-ready.
“This is the compiler moment for hardware,” said Sergiy Nesterenko, CEO and founder of Quilter. “What once took teams months now happens in days, allowing products to reach the market months, if not a year, ahead of competitors. This is the future of hardware development.”
Industry estimates suggest that professional PCB designers would require 428 hours to produce the same two-board system achieved in Project Speedrun—238 hours for the baseboard and 190 hours for the System-on-Module (SOM). Quilter autonomously completed 98% of placement, routing, and physics validation in just 27 hours. A single engineer spent 12 hours refining the baseboard and 26.5 hours on the SOM, achieving an overall 11x acceleration, with a peak 20x improvement on the baseboard alone.
Quilter uses physics-driven reinforcement learning to explore manufacturable board layouts. Engineers submit a schematic, and the AI generates multiple physics-validated design options, running parallel explorations, identifying viable layouts, and allowing minimal human cleanup before producing fabrication-ready files. Tony Fadell, the product visionary behind the iPod, iPhone, and Nest, called the innovation a game-changer. “Quilter removes the bottleneck of manual PCB design. Weeks of work now take days. Faster iteration means faster innovation,” he said.
The platform also addresses the hardware talent shortage, allowing engineers to focus on higher-value tasks such as system integration and architecture refinement. By enabling weekly design cycles, Quilter allows a single engineer to produce 52 designs annually compared with four using traditional quarterly workflows.
