Cadence launches Maestro, Nvidia-backed AI models for chip design agents

Cadence Design Systems on Monday launched Maestro, a portfolio of AI models tuned to power its chip-design agents, built in part on Nvidia's open-weight Nemotron models and secured with Nvidia's OpenShell technology. Customers can run the models on Cadence's cloud, any public cloud, or entirely on their own premises, and post-train them on proprietary designs. Cadence says early results show up to 30% higher quality and up to 5x better token efficiency than general-purpose models. The move diverges from rival Synopsys's recent deal with OpenAI; the first models reach select early-access customers in the fourth quarter.