OpenAI Tests Astra for Hardware and Vehicle Design

OpenAI detailed new engineering tests in a company blog post, including the use of Astra to design a device for talking to Codex. Two team members completed the design in under a week without direct human edits, covering the enclosure, printed circuit board, interface, firmware and software integrations.

A contract manufacturer produced a small batch of prototypes in under a month. OpenAI said the design still needed several reviews because Astra did not consistently account for production limits, tolerances and assembly details.

OpenAI is also testing models on computer aided design, manufacturing drawings and simulations. On its BenchCAD 2.0 evaluation, a newer internal model scored an average of 0.875, compared with 0.594 for GPT 6 Astra at its highest reasoning setting. Model usage across the company's hardware teams, measured in tokens, has increased by a factor of 23 since February.

The company is expanding work with Chip Ganassi Racing on converting scans of existing parts into editable models and manufacturing drawings. It also started a research collaboration with Mazda Motor Corporation to test models for aerodynamics and crash safety, including simulations of airflow and structural behavior.