Pathkey.AI (ASX: PKY) Adds Chip Design Expert to Chipforge Advisory Board

Pathkey.AI has appointed semiconductor researcher Professor Anupam Chattopadhyay as the inaugural member of a new advisory board established to support the development and commercialisation of its Chipforge semiconductor design platform.

Chattopadhyay has already been involved in Chipforge’s early development and testing, giving Pathkey continued access to expertise spanning artificial intelligence, semiconductor design and chip-design software commercialisation.

The company said the advisory board would also help guide team expansion as Chipforge moves towards a commercial product. Pathkey did not provide a timetable for its release.

AI-Led Chip Design

Chipforge is being developed to turn descriptions of desired chip functions into verified hardware code, with users expected to be able to provide design inputs through text, images, speech or documents.

The platform uses AI agents and proprietary models to generate code before carrying out verification and simulation. Pathkey also intends the system to support synthesis and implementation on field-programmable gate arrays.

The company describes Chipforge as an AI-native platform because artificial intelligence is embedded throughout the design workflow, rather than added to conventional semiconductor design software as a supplementary feature.

Once fully developed, the platform is intended to automate much of the custom chip-development process across both field-programmable gate array and application-specific integrated circuit designs.

The commercial case rests on reducing the time and cost required to develop custom chips. Chipforge remains under development, leaving technical validation and the transition from prototype technology to a commercial product as key milestones.

Semiconductor Commercialisation Experience

Chattopadhyay is a tenured associate professor at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, where his research spans artificial intelligence and semiconductor design. His academic work has attracted more than 10,000 citations.

Research undertaken during his doctorate at RWTH Aachen led to the development of a proprietary chip-design tool that later became LISATek. The business was subsequently acquired by CoWare, which was itself acquired by semiconductor software group Synopsys.

That track record gives Chattopadhyay experience taking semiconductor design technology from academic research through to commercial adoption. He was also awarded NTU’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Award in 2025.

Pathkey Chief Executive Officer Andrew Farnsworth said Chattopadhyay's appointment formalised a relationship that had existed since the early stages of Chipforge's development.

“Anupam has been part of the Chipforge development from the start, so this appointment formalises a relationship that is already delivering,” Farnsworth said. “He has built chip design tools that reached the global market and now works at the front edge of AI research.”

Advisory Team Expands

Chattopadhyay joins Pathkey strategic adviser Sam Weiss, who chaired Altium from 2007 until the electronic-design software company was acquired by Japan’s Renesas Electronics for A$9.1 billion in 2024.

Pathkey said it plans to appoint additional members to the Chipforge Advisory Board in coming months.

Board members will receive performance rights, described by the company as restricted stock units, under its employee incentive scheme. The announcement did not disclose the number, value or vesting conditions attached to those securities.

Pathkey is also developing TrialKey, an artificial-intelligence platform focused on clinical-trial design and optimisation. Both TrialKey and Chipforge use agent-based AI architectures combining large-language-model capabilities with neuro-symbolic reasoning.