NVIDIA AI Podcast: How Dassault Systèmes Is Building AI That Understands Physics
Episode 296 | April 29, 2026
Host: Noah Kravitz (NVIDIA)
Guest: Nicolas Serisier, VP of 3Dexperience Platform R&D, Dassault Systèmes
Overview
In this episode, Noah Kravitz and Nicolas Serisier discuss Dassault Systèmes’ pioneering work in developing AI systems grounded in scientific and engineering principles. The conversation explores "industry world models" and "virtual companions"—new forms of AI designed for industrial applications that move beyond generic generative AI—focusing on reliability, trust, and real-world impact. The episode weaves through specific use cases, the technology stack behind these AI systems, and the evolving collaboration between Dassault Systèmes and NVIDIA.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
Dassault Systèmes at a Glance [01:04]
- Background: Dassault Systèmes has enabled customers for over 40 years to imagine, design, simulate, and build diverse products—from cars to airplanes to medical devices.
- Reach: 400,000 customers, 45 million users, including 15 million scientists and engineers.
- Core Offering: Provides "factories" for creating virtual twins: scientific, multi-disciplinary, multi-scale digital representations of real-world products, which can be tested and optimized before anything physical is built.
- Strategic Shift: Transitioning the 3Dexperience platform from a SaaS architecture to an agent as a service platform—bringing AI to all customers.
“We enable a product to be tested in the virtual world in the real condition, before anything exists in the real world.” – Nicolas Serisier [01:38]
Industry World Models vs. Generic Generative AI [03:22]
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Three Core Principles:
- Grounded in Science: Embeds physics, engineering, chemistry, and materials science.
- Fueled by Industry Knowledge: Integrates standards, regulations, and processes of various industries; embodies real-world engineering rules and jargon.
- Sovereign by Design: Designed for traceability, security, and compliance from infrastructure to application.
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Difference from General GenAI:
Unlike LLMs that can “describe what they see” but don’t know why (e.g., why a plane flies), industry world models use actual scientific principles to ground reasoning and action.
“A plane does not fly by accident. So in fact our industry world model principles, they understand how things work, they really understand the scientific foundation.” – Nicolas Serisier [04:10]
- Technical Pillars:
- Industrial knowledge base
- Specialized industrial AI models operating on virtual twins
- Industrial reasoning and agentic choreography (orchestration & execution in context)
Virtual Companions: AI Coworkers for Industry [07:00]
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Concept: Virtual companions act as domain-specialist AI coworkers—interpreting intent, reasoning with industry models, and executing within business constraints.
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Roles:
- Ora: Business expert
- Leo: Engineering problem solver
- Mari: Scientist with deep domain expertise
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Mission: Enhance, not replace, human capability—freeing up time for innovation and problem-solving while ensuring compliance and reliability.
“We don’t want to replace people, we want to augment people. We want to free time to people to innovate and solve problems.” – Nicolas Serisier [07:08]
Trust, Hallucination & Auditability in Agentic Systems [08:35]
- Trust Foundation:
- Scientific validation (models grounded in physics & engineering)
- Human-in-the-loop: Humans remain accountable; agentic processes pause for human oversight at key milestones.
- IP Lifecycle Management (iplm): Enforces lineage, traceability, and auditability for every interaction—a unique differentiator.
“We are able to know that your content has been modified through which workflow, using what kind of models… We provide the source of trust to understand how your virtual companion behaves with your content.” – Nicolas Serisier [09:17]
NVIDIA Technologies Powering Industrial AI [09:58]
- NVIDIA infusion across the stack:
- AI factories & GPUs (infrastructure)
- CUDA X Libraries, Omniverse (training, inference, & simulation acceleration)
- Integration Areas:
- Understanding: NVIDIA NIMs models, multimodality (Riva, Parse-VLM), Bionemo (life sciences).
- Reasoning: Enhanced performance using NVIDIA's NE3 Super—20% improvement for agents like Ora, Leo, and Mari.
- Execution: Leveraging recent NVIDIA announcements (AIQ, Blueprint, Deep Agent), Dynamo (GPU optimization), Nemo Agilent for workflow optimization.
“We leverage NVIDIA open models for multimodality… With Parse we improve for example by 30% our document injection and throughput.” – Nicolas Serisier [11:09]
The 25+ Year Dassault-NVIDIA Partnership [12:37]
- Timeline:
- Early 2000s: Visualization acceleration (CATIA V5) with NVIDIA GPUs
- Simulia/Abacus: Compute acceleration (CUDA & GPUs)
- Advanced rendering: IRA, RTX, DLSS
- Now: Industrial AI platform via deep integration of NVIDIA technologies
“For over 25 years now, Dassault and NVIDIA have redefined what is possible together… This year we are opening a new chapter in this story with AI.” – Nicolas Serisier [12:45]
Hybrid AI Models, Openness & Regulatory Compliance [14:03]
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Hybrid Approach:
- Combination of proprietary models and best-in-class third-party frontier models (e.g., NVIDIA’s Nemotron, Mistral).
- Model selection criteria: performance, sovereignty, regulatory requirements, auditability.
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Openness:
- Embraces open standards (e.g., MCP, agent-to-agent)
- Enables cross-system agent choreography and third-party system interchange.
“We operate worldwide… many customers in regulated or very sensitive industries. We have to comply with our own regulation and all the auditability.” – Nicolas Serisier [14:53]
Use Case Spotlight: Leo, the Mechanical Designer [15:57]
- Demo at 3Dexperience World Conference:
- Input: 3D scan or 2D drawing/mesh of a part.
- Leo activates the industry world model, orchestrates AI, modelling, simulation solvers.
- Multi-tier planning: evaluates mechanical interfaces, physics, kinematics, design rules.
- Output: Optimized, physics-aware, manufacturing-ready design—“right the first time.”
“We are giving to our millions of designers the power to innovate faster. But it’s not just about speed, it’s about reliability and trust. Your design works because it is born from science, from physics and is augmented with your industry knowledge.” – Nicolas Serisier [17:08]
Customer Example: Naya (Aircraft Virtual Twin Reconstruction) [19:26]
- Challenge: Recreating thousands of aircraft parts virtually without access to original designs (disassemble and reverse-engineer via digital twin).
- Impact: Leo automates 3D part generation from multiple sources, massively accelerating and standardizing the process.
“With Leo, you can imagine how it changed their life. Automatically generating the 3D part from their multiple sources.” – Nicolas Serisier [19:57]
The Future: Closed-loop Autonomy & Self-Improving Twins [20:43]
- Vision:
- Agents like Ora, Leo, Mari will continuously monitor projects, supply chains, and virtual factories in real time.
- Agents will proactively optimize without the need for human prompting, resulting in closed-loop autonomy.
- Virtual twins become self-evolving assets, improving with every cycle.
“The agents can use the virtual twin as a gym to train themselves… run millions of simulations or design experimentations and present to you… the proven solution. The virtual twin in fact becomes a self-evolving asset that gets smarter day after day.” – Nicolas Serisier [00:00, 21:27]
Memorable Quotes & Moments
- “We enable a product to be tested in the virtual world in the real condition, before anything exists in the real world.” – Nicolas Serisier [01:38]
- “A plane does not fly by accident… our industry world model principles… really understand the scientific foundation.” – Nicolas Serisier [04:10]
- “We don’t want to replace people, we want to augment people… to innovate and solve problems.” – Nicolas Serisier [07:08]
- “We are able to know that your content has been modified through which workflow, using what kind of models… We provide the source of trust…” – Nicolas Serisier [09:17]
- “With Leo, you can imagine how it changed their life. Automatically generating the 3D part from their multiple sources.” – Nicolas Serisier [19:57]
- “The virtual twin in fact becomes a self-evolving asset that gets smarter day after day.” – Nicolas Serisier [21:34]
Important Timestamps
| Timestamp | Segment Description |
|-----------|----------------------------------------|
| 01:04 | Introduction to Dassault Systèmes and 3Dexperience Platform |
| 03:22 | Defining industry world models and their difference from generic AI |
| 07:00 | Virtual companions: Ora, Leo, and Mari |
| 08:35 | Establishing trust and auditability in agentic AI systems |
| 09:58 | NVIDIA technology deep integration details |
| 12:37 | Longstanding Dassault-NVIDIA partnership |
| 14:03 | Hybrid models, openness, and compliance |
| 15:57 | Use case: Leo the mechanical designer (live demo) |
| 19:26 | Customer example: Aircraft virtual twin reconstruction |
| 20:43 | Future vision: closed-loop autonomy and self-learning twins |
Resources
This episode provides valuable insights for engineers, technologists, and business leaders interested in the next generation of reliable, physics-based industrial AI—and the NVIDIA technologies making it possible.