From Data to Design: Challenges and Opportunities across Industry and Academia

ASME IDETC 2025 Workshop, Location: Hilton Anaheim, Anaheim, California, USA

Sunday, August 17, 2025

Prof. Faez Ahmed¹, Prof. Wei "Wayne" Chen², Prof. Namwoo Kang³, Dr. Yanxia Zhang⁴

¹MIT, ²TAMU, ³Narnia Labs, ⁴TRI

The Basics

This full‑day workshop convenes researchers and practitioners to explore the next wave of data‑driven engineering design. Speakers will highlight emerging datasets, representations, machine‑learning methods, and human‑AI workflows that shape tomorrow’s products. A curated panel will broaden the conversation with perspectives from varied perspectives, while an interactive team activity invites attendees to co‑create visions for the future of “AI for Design”.

Participants

We welcome faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and engineers from industry who are passionate about design, data, and AI. No prior ML background is required—curiosity and enthusiasm are the only prerequisites.

Workshop Format

The day is split into two parts:

Session	Activity
Welcome & Overview 9:00 AM	Opening remarks outlining workshop goals and agenda.
Design Datasets 9:15 AM	Overview of curated datasets enabling AI‑driven design.
Design Representation & Synthesis with Generative AI 9:30 AM	Exploration of generative AI techniques for representing and creating designs.
Generative Optimization 9:45 AM	Methods for optimizing designs using generative models.
Invited Talk 10:00 AM	Industry perspective on Physics-driven AI.
Short Break & Buffer — 10:15 AM (15 min)
Data‑Driven Design in CAD 10:45 AM	Challenges and opportunities for CAD augmented by AI.
Data‑Driven Material Design 11:00 AM	Leveraging data to accelerate material discovery.
From Forward Modeling to Inverse Design 11:15 AM	Bridging predictive modeling with inverse design workflows.
Invited Talk Talk 11:30 AM	Academic perspective on AI‑assisted engineering design.
Lunch Break — 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM
Industrial Demos 1:30 PM	Hands‑on demonstrations of design‑AI tools.
Panel Discussion 2:30 PM	Short viewpoints followed by moderated Q&A with industry and academic leaders.
Team Activity: Tomorrow’s AI for Design 3:45 PM	Collaborative ideation session envisioning future design workflows.
Wrap‑up 4:45 PM	Closing reflections and next steps led by the organizing team.