As semiconductor designs become increasingly complex, engineering teams are turning to autonomous AI to improve productivity and accelerate development. Synopsys has introduced new autonomous agentic AI workflows for chip design, developed in collaboration with Microsoft and available for evaluation on Microsoft Discovery. The new capabilities extend AI beyond task automation to enable long-running engineering execution across silicon design and verification.
Synopsys has announced a new generation of autonomous agentic AI workflows designed to accelerate chip development and improve engineering productivity. Developed in collaboration with Microsoft, the workflows are available for evaluation through Microsoft Discovery and represent the first Electronic Design Automation (EDA) applications offered on the platform.
The announcement builds on Synopsys' broader vision of creating an open agentic AI stack that enables higher levels of engineering autonomy across the semiconductor design lifecycle.
One of the newly introduced workflows focuses on debug closure by combining AI-powered verification and root cause analysis with Microsoft's Discovery platform.
The workflow orchestrates domain-specific and task-level AI agents to automatically identify design failures, perform debugging tasks, and accelerate validation processes. According to Synopsys, early evaluations demonstrate a 25–40% reduction in debug cycle time, potentially saving engineering teams several weeks while improving overall silicon quality.
Synopsys also introduced an autonomous implementation and closure workflow built on Fusion Compiler running on Microsoft Azure.
The solution combines implementation agents with domain-specific AI to automate quality-of-results (QoR) tuning and implementation closure. Initial evaluations indicate improvements in implementation quality while reducing manual engineering effort during physical design optimization.
The new workflows are part of a broader collaboration between Synopsys, Microsoft, and AMD to accelerate the design of next-generation AI infrastructure chips.
By combining large-scale AI reasoning, semiconductor domain expertise, and cloud-scale computing resources, the companies aim to improve design velocity while supporting increasingly complex AI-powered silicon architectures.
AMD is currently evaluating the autonomous workflows for use in developing future semiconductor products.
"AI is reshaping engineering. Together with Microsoft and Synopsys, we're enabling a new generation of AI-assisted design workflows that augment human ingenuity with intelligent automation and optimization," said Alex Starr, AMD Corporate Fellow. "AI driven workflows powered by Discovery and leveraging AI tooling, such as RCA with deep EDA domain knowledge, are a paradigm we see accelerating scaling and deployment, helping improve both design velocity and overall silicon quality."
Microsoft highlighted semiconductor engineering as one of the most complex applications for AI-driven scientific computing.
"We designed Microsoft Discovery to accelerate scientific and engineering innovation with AI, and chip design is an ideal application for Discovery as it addresses one of the most complex engineering challenges on the planet," said Aseem Datar, Corporate Vice President (CVP) of Product Innovation for Microsoft Discovery and Quantum. "We are excited about Synopsys' open, interoperable approach to their agentic platform and the collaborative effort with Synopsys and AMD to make these agentic AI EDA workflows the first available on Discovery."
The latest announcement reflects Synopsys' strategy of applying increasingly autonomous AI capabilities throughout the semiconductor engineering process to address growing chip complexity while improving quality and reducing development timelines.
"As AI-powered systems and hyperscale computing push silicon complexity to unprecedented levels, engineering teams can no longer afford traditional tradeoffs between performance, quality, and development speed," said Ravi Subramanian, Chief Product Management Officer, Synopsys. "Synopsys is addressing this challenge by applying AI capabilities with increasing levels of autonomy to accelerate and transform silicon engineering."
The company showcased the autonomous workflows during the 2026 DAC Chips to Systems Conference, demonstrating how agentic AI can support semiconductor design teams from verification through implementation using intelligent, autonomous engineering workflows.
Synopsys, Inc. is the leader in engineering solutions from silicon to systems, enabling customers to rapidly innovate AI-powered products. We deliver industry-leading silicon design, IP, simulation and analysis solutions, and design services. We partner closely with our customers across a wide range of industries to maximize their R&D capability and productivity, powering innovation today that ignites the ingenuity of tomorrow. Learn more at www.synopsys.com.
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