The Alpine Apex Ultra partnership has been confirmed, with BWT Alpine Formula One Team signing Apex Ultra as its official AI for Engineering Partner in a new multi-year deal. The California-based frontier AI lab will bring its Engineering Superintelligence, known as ESI, into the design, simulation and development of Alpine’s Formula One cars at Enstone. The release states it is the first time a Formula One team has embedded a frontier AI lab’s engineering intelligence across its technical operation.
What the Alpine Apex Ultra Deal Covers
Apex Ultra describes ESI as AI that designs, simulates, tests and builds complex machines and physical systems. For Alpine, it is being built to reason across aerodynamics, structures, thermodynamics, materials and manufacturing at once, within the regulations, and to build on what it learns each race weekend.
Early case studies cut highly complex engineering workflows from more than two weeks of expert work to two days.
ESI will work inside Enstone’s existing design, simulation and engineering tools. Its job is to widen the pool of design candidates the team can explore and close the gap between simulation and what the car does on track.
Manufacturability gets weighed alongside performance, and the full history of every development decision is kept on record.
Alpine’s engineers keep the final say on what goes on the car. ESI is there to shorten the time it takes to know if an idea is right.
Enstone designs and builds the A526 on-site with a 1,000-strong workforce. Pierre Gasly and Franco Colapinto race it.
Nielsen: Intelligence Defines the Next Era
“Formula One has always been won by the teams that saw the next decisive technology coming, committed to it early, and learned to put it to work best,” said Managing Director Steve Nielsen.
“Aerodynamics drove competitive advantage in the last three decades. The next will be defined by intelligence, by how fast a team can turn everything it learns into a faster car.”
“Bringing Apex Ultra into Enstone is that commitment,” he added.
“We are not adding a tool to the factory. We are changing how the team learns and adapts.”
Steve Nielsen – Managing Director, BWT Alpine Formula One Team
Alpine admits closing the gap to the front of the grid won’t be easy. The impact on track is expected to build over time, with each race weekend’s insights feeding straight into the next round of upgrades.
Alpine says the aim is to start fighting for podiums and beyond.
Why Apex Ultra Picked Formula One
“Formula One is the AlphaGo arena for engineering: the best engineers on the planet, competing in public, with a feedback loop measured in weeks rather than years,” said Apex Ultra co-founder Denis Mars.
“There is no better place to learn what it means for an intelligence to engineer, and no better partner than a team that has chosen to learn faster than everyone else,” he said.
“This is the first time our work towards ESI leaves our lab. We wanted the first place it went to be the hardest.”
Apex Ultra was founded by two Stanford professors alongside championship-winning Formula One engineers and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. It is headquartered at SRI International in Menlo Park, California, with teams in San Francisco, Boston, London, Zurich and Paris.
Financial terms and the exact length of the multi-year agreement weren’t disclosed.
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