This was announced by Bernard Charles, President and CEO of Dassault Systèmes, at a press conference held at the Science in the Age of Experience conference in Boston
This was announced by Bernard Charles, President and CEO of Dassault Systèmes, at a press conference held at the Science in the Age of Experience conference in Boston
Dassault Systèmes invests 1.5 billion dollars in 3D design solutions for the field of life sciences. This was announced by Bernard Charles, CEO of Dassault Systèmes, at a press conference held at the Science in the Age of Experience conference in Boston. Dassault Systèmes has restated its announced commitment to make the cloud-based XNUMXDEXPERIENCE system accelerate scientific innovation.
Dassault Systèmes also took the opportunity to showcase the synergy it described between its two divisions, BIOVIA (recently acquired) and long-established SIMULIA, to provide what the company calls "simulation from the atomic level to the product level" in a multi-step approach, with each step at scale higher in size than its predecessor. The system is based on physics, and in most of the lectures, physical equations used to design these systems were presented. The five areas in which the investment will be realized are: precision medicine, ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING, advanced materials, and the Internet of Things.
The cloud-based 3DEXPERIENCE platform helps lower development costs, and Dassault's many collaborations with companies and even researchers in academia will allow the company to keep pace with scientific developments. BIOVIA offers a scientific collaborative environment, while SIMULIA offers a virtual simulation testing environment.
Charles referred to the changes, which are seen by some industry commentators as a seismic shift in the company's focus.
At the press conference at the end of the opening day of the conference, Charles elaborated on Dassault's roadmap, saying: "We have the luxury of being a private company, so we can take a significant risk. People didn't necessarily take it seriously. When I decided to invest 1.5 billion [euros] in life sciences, it was a decision that could not be made when your shares are floating on the market. It took me less than 15 minutes to decide to go for it with all my might. This is proof that we are serious."
"Despite the deep scientific aspect of many of the things we do, how can we orchestrate the dream we have in a way that can be relevant? It is much deeper than just a form of marketing. It's really about what value we want to bring the company through business, and who we want to work with to make it happen. I think this is the new Dassault Systèmes. "
At the press conference, Charles also elaborated on the future intentions of Dassault Systèmes, as a company seeking to expand its presence to previously untapped markets.
"I had a secret desire to put everything we do. Even if in those times when our son was an investor it was easier to talk about software. From my personal experience - science is more than a collection of knowledge, it is an inspired and special attitude to the world, and this has many consequences.
We developed 3DEXPERIENCE as a science-based platform to conduct simulations of the world for science. When I was in high school I really liked science - the moment of inspiration was when I realized that all this knowledge connects together. Science will make the impossible possible.
This means that we can look at science as the art of discovery, and industry as the art of application, and innovation is the art of doing something new by connecting people and ideas. We need science in building better cars, and also in the field of construction and architecture, although there an understanding of the social sciences is also required. Charles described a Singapore redevelopment project in which the company is involved. Among other things, Singaporean children were given wearable devices that tracked their movements for about a month. Thus, for example, it became clear that public parks are waiting in vain for children, who go to other entertainments. Another area examined during the project was the location of buildings in relation to the directions of wind and rain in order to plan, at least for the future, more energy efficient buildings.
Science is at the forefront of what we can imagine. This is Dassault's vision for thirty years. All the time we aimed to describe what we do in nature through computing. The second part was to share the planning with others.
The next step is to create experiments where we can understand the impact of what we are doing. And that's what we want to do from today. Science is changing life in cities, medical care, understanding human behavior, and enabling a holistic experiment like the one in Singapore.
In 2012, we developed the 3DEXPERIENCE platform - which showed that it is possible to link the different areas of life and science. In particular, we connected the life sciences and systems biology with the materials sciences. The platform enables a simulation of the relationship between the atomic level and the system level so that we can understand the entire spectrum of behavior. To do this we decided to acquire BIOVIA. The idea is to create an experience that will allow anyone to create, share and edit a visualization. From robots to autonomous cars. The multimedia aspect helps different disciplines understand each other. Therefore, XNUMXD is an excellent way to produce reality and communicate reality. Who thought of building an entire plane with a XNUMXD printer? We managed to connect data science and medicine, step by step, we created a unique environment for innovation. An example of this is the human heart project (Living Heart). We wanted to show a multidisciplinary approach, and this is also used in cancer drug trials and more.
The market always looks at us with a special eye, the company has a special DNA. You can always say things that the market is not ready for. We started with 3 clients 25 years ago on composites, we do science, not CAD. And it was a long time ago. It only recently became visible to the rest of the world. There are many problems that we help customers with science-based solutions without saying so, because the market was unwilling to admit it. We made decisions to purchase companies with the money we earned. This is the strongest proof.
If you look at the profile of the people we have in the company, the software engineering part is not the main one, I have always refused to hire people who are only programmers, but engineers who also understand the high level. Unlike in other places where there are planners and there are programmers."
