VI-grade Wraps Up Successful 2023 EMEA ZERO PROTOTYPES Summit With Record-Breaking Attendance of Over 270 Global Automotive Industry Innovators

Udine, Italy, June 1st , 2023 – VI-grade, the global provider of human-centric simulation-driven vehicle development solutions, today announced the official recap of its highly succesful 2023 EMEA ZERO PROTOTYPES Summit, which was held from May 23rd – 25th at VI-grade’s SimCenter in Udine, Italy. With a record-breaking attendance of over 270 in-person and additional 800 virtual attendees following the livestream on LinkedIn, this year's ZERO PROTOTYPES Summit marked the largest gathering to-date of VI-grade’s global driving simulator community. 

The summit’s theme of  “Join us on the Road to Zero Prototypes” embodied the journey towards a prototype-free vehicle development process and virtual sign-off, recognizing that the path itself holds immense value. Achieving Zero Prototypes remains the ultimate development goal, and VI-grade customers showcased the significant progress they’ve already made along this journey during the three-day event.
  The 2023 ZPS featured 27 inspiring keynote and technical presentations from renowned simulation thought leaders in the global automotive industry. These industry experts demonstrated how they leverage VI-grade’s simulation, driving simulators, and Hardware-in-the-Loop technologies to accelerate new vehicle development, bringing them ever closer to realizing the vision of Zero Prototypes.

Day 1 of the summit highlighted presentations from market leading companies such as Applus+ IDIADA, Bridgestone EMIA, Bugatti Rimac, CEVT, Dromo, HBK, Mahindra & Mahindra, Maserati, Mazda Motor Corporation, Meccanica 42, MegaRide, Pagani Automobili, Pirelli Tyre, Politecnico di Milano, Tenneco, and Volkswagen.

On Day 2, attendees were treated to presentations from Barco, CAE Value, Chassis Autonomy, Ferrari, Ford Motor Company UK, Hitachi Astemo, HORIBA MIRA, Hyundai METC, Jaguar Land Rover, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Moog, Multimatic, Pirelli Tyre, Politecnico di Milano, and Volvo Cars. 

The PDF versions of the presentations are already available for download on the VI-grade website. The video content will be shared on VI-grade's YouTube channel as it becomes available. The official aftermovie of the event can be found at this link https://youtu.be/3SIcT726wpo. 
  The ZERO PROTOTYPES Summit provided a forum for major announcements pertaining to VI-grade’s business and product developments, including:

• Launch of the COMPACT Full Spectrum Simulator: The summit unveiled VI-grade's new COMPACT FSS Simulator, an unparalleled, significant addition to the company's driving simulator product line. The COMPACT FSS Simulator addresses what had been until now the long-standing demand from vehicle design and development engineers to experience and evaluate ride motion, vibration, and sound within a single, small footprint simulator. 
• Global ZERO PROTOTYPES Summit Series Expansion: Demonstrating VI-grade's commitment to the Zero Prototypes challenge, the company announced the expansion of its global summit series. On September 20th, VI-grade will host its second North American summit at Multimatic SimCenter in Novi, Michigan, followed by a Japanese summit on September 21 in Tokyo. Finally, on October 18th, the first-ever ZPS summit dedicated to the Chinese automotive community will take place at the new SimCenter in Yantai, China, in partnership with Applus+ IDIADA. These events aim to unite the industry across continents, inspiring collaboration and driving the automotive sector towards an innovative future.
• 2023 Virtual Formula Award Ceremony: In tight competition between 130 teams from all over the world, the following winners of the 2023 edition of the Virtual Formula competition were announced during the event:
  • Optimization Category: UniBo Motorsport, Alma Mater University of Bologna, Italy
  • Digital Twin Electric Category: Squadra Corse PoliTO, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
  • Digital Twin Combustion Category: WUT Racing Team, Wuhan University of Technology, China

"The 2023 ZERO PROTOTYPES Summit was an exceptional success, unveiling impressive metrics from our customers. With notable achievements such as a 50% reduction in test time, 30% to 40% reduction in development time, and 98% accuracy in performance prediction using VI-grade tools”, commented Guido Bairati, Managing Director at VI-grade. “Once again it was a great pleasure to welcome our valued customers, partners, sponsors and colleagues at our SimCenter Udine, providing them with hands-on experiences on our simulators as well as networking opportunities and high quality keynote and technical presentations. I very much look forward to our upcoming ZERO PROTOPYES Summits in North America, Japan, and China, where we will continue this inspiring journey together” 

INDUSTRY SPONSORS AND PARTNERS
VI-grade would like to acknowledge and thank the following industry partners for their support and sponsorship of the 2023 EMEA ZERO PROTOTYPES Summit:  

• PLATINUM: Applus+ IDIADA, HORIBA MIRA, SAGInoMIYA
• GOLD: Barco, Concurrent Real-Time, cosin, HBK, Imtec Engineering, Meccanica 42, MegaRide, Moog, Multimatic
• SILVER: 3D Mapping Solutions, domeprojection, Fraunhofer ITWM, Joanneum Research, Konrad Technologies, Rebel Dynamics, Smart Eye, Sound To Sight
• BRONZE: BE CAE & Test, Screenline
• VI-CERTIFIED: Hexagon, rFpro

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