'Our AI Applications Will Transform The Role Of Engineers'

(MENAFN- Swissinfo) Pierre Baqué, CEO of Swiss start-up Neural Concept, says his technology can halve the time needed to design and bring a new car model to market. This content was published on September 27, 2025 - 10:00 9 minutes

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Founded in 2018, Neural Concept specialises in artificial intelligence (AI) applications, which it sells mainly to the automotive industry. Today the start-up has 80 employees in the Swiss city of Lausanne, New York and Munich.

It has around 60 client companies and has made a name for itself in Formula One.

Swissinfo met founder and CEO Pierre Baqué of Neural Concept at the company's offices in the innovation park of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL).

Swissinfo: How would you explain simply what Neural Concept does?

Pierre Baqué: Our AI applications act as assistants or co-pilots for engineers. This enables them to develop products more quickly, perform more iterations in a set time and gain from automated suggestions. In the car industry, for instance, our technology can cut by half the time needed to design and bring a new model to market.

Our AI applications will transform the role of engineers, but without replacing them. The challenge is to create a truly symbiotic relationship between human creativity and the analytical power of AI.

Kai Reusser / SWI swissinfo

Swissinfo: What impact does Neural Concept have on employment for your clients, particularly in the automotive and aerospace industries?

P.B: This is a very important issue for our clients. AI generates considerable efficiency gains: some companies will be able to develop more products with the same number – or even more – engineers, while others will decide to produce the same volume with fewer engineers.

Swissinfo : Will training programmes for engineers need to be adapted to cater for these new realities?

P.B: Absolutely. Engineering tools are evolving, so courses will have to adapt, more quickly and more fundamentally than they did when computer-aided design and simulation were introduced.

“Our AI applications will transform the role of engineers, but without replacing them.” Vera Leysinger / SWI swissinfo

Swissinfo : The education system in Switzerland is very democratic, whereas in France it is extremely elitist, with institutions such as the École Polytechnique de Paris, of which you are a graduate. Has the fact that you are a French-trained engineer made a difference on how you work?

P.B.: The rigorous education at the École Polytechnique de Paris, including two years of preparatory classes, enables students to excel in mathematics, physics and other technical fields. These competences remain throughout their lives, not least thanks to the intellectual discipline acquired. The fact that this school is notoriously hard to get into also makes it a valuable business card, which definitely helped us in obtaining our first contracts with major groups such as Airbus and Safran. These credentials also boosted our initial fundraising efforts. The downside of such elitism, however, is the low value placed on apprenticeships in France, whereas they are one of the great strengths of the Swiss system.

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