SCAE partners with Secondmind to accelerate future vehicle development for Japanese OEMs with advanced Engineering AI
New sales distributor agreement is SCAE’s first partnership with a technology company outside of Japan
CAMBRIDGE, United Kingdom, June 09, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SC Automotive Engineering Co., Ltd. (SCAE), a company providing development engineering centered on the automotive industry, and Secondmind, the leader in data-efficient engineering AI, today announced the closing of a strategic reseller agreement. SCAE will offer Secondmind’s award-winning, cloud-native model-based engineering software as a key component of its leading technology services, unlocking development efficiencies and increased productivity for its OEM and Tier 1 vehicle design and development customers. This partnership is an anchor tenant in SCAE’s broader strategy to address rising development complexity for CASE (Connected, Autonomous, Shared, Electric) vehicles.
This value added reseller (VAR) agreement marks SCAE’s first partnership with a non-Japanese technology company, and will enhance SCAE's consulting services by integrating the company’s deep automotive know-how with Secondmind's advanced Engineering AI. Secondmind’s UK-developed software is powered by data-efficient Active Learning, which helps engineers make informed decisions with greater confidence, while significantly reducing reliance on excessive simulations and physical testing.
Secondmind software addresses two domains where engineering complexity is greatest in development programs:
Secondmind for Design Space Exploration
In the design phase, simulation is used extensively to investigate design values in high-dimensional spaces to meet target performance. The number of combinations can be enormous, with conventional empirical rules and exhaustive simulation methods requiring significant time and cost. Secondmind for Design Space Exploration reduces simulations by up to 80% and quantifies uncertainty to help engineers confidently navigate complex design spaces and make informed tradeoffs in all design stages. The result is more pre-validated designs discovered in less time with reduced risk of costly rework later in the development process. A leading engine manufacturer recently discovered 3X more feasible designs in half the time than their existing simulator, resulting in more choices, flexibility, and confidence.
Secondmind for Calibration
The calibration of e-motors, engines and other power systems is a time consuming process that traditionally requires extensive experimentation and reliance on large volumes of physical test data to reach target performance. Secondmind for Calibration intelligently automates experimental design and reduces reliance on physical testing to only the data that contributes most to achieving the performance objective. This cuts the time it takes to calibrate complex systems by more than 50%. With Secondmind, Mazda Motor Corporation has achieved a 59% reduction in engineering-hours in calibration when compared to conventional methods.
Toshimi Yamanoi, President and CEO, SC Automotive Engineering Co., Ltd. said: “At SCAE, our mission is to bridge the most innovative technologies emerging globally with Japan's automotive engineers. Secondmind is exactly the kind of partner we were looking for — a company with genuinely transformative technology and proven results. The feedback we have received from our customers on Secondmind’s capabilities gives us real confidence that it will change the way Japanese automakers design and test products. This partnership opens an exciting new chapter for SCAE, and we look forward to the impact we will create together.”
Gary Brotman, CEO, Secondmind, said: “We’re grateful to SCAE for welcoming Secondmind as its first technology partner from outside Japan. This partnership represents a meaningful milestone for us, but more importantly, it opens the door to bringing the benefits of data-efficient Engineering AI to more SCAE customers across Japan. By uniting SCAE’s trusted engineering leadership with our industry leading model-based design and calibration technologies, we will help OEMs and their suppliers manage rising engineering complexity, shorten development cycles, reduce cost burdens, and deliver the uncompromising quality that defines Japan’s automotive industry. We’re excited to support SCAE in shaping the future of vehicle development and innovation.”
Further enquiries:
Kate Matthews - Head of Marketing at Secondmind
About Secondmind
Secondmind exists to help engineers design better products faster. In the automotive sector, the company’s cloud-native software, powered by Secondmind Active Learning, addresses the increasing complexity of vehicle design and development by reducing design simulation time and calibration overhead, enabling engineers to reimagine vehicle design and accelerate the transition to carbon-neutral mobility. Secondmind has been recognized with the Automotive Testing Technology International 'Alternative Powertrain Test Innovation of the Year Award'; listed in the Barclays Eagle Labs Ones to Watch AI:100, selected for the Tech Nation Future Fifty scale-up program, and named by Bloomberg as one of the UK’s 25 startups to watch.
For more information, please visit: https://www.secondmind.ai
About SC Automotive Engineering
SC Automotive Engineering Co., Ltd. is an engineering company established in August 2020 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sumitomo Corporation, with the mission to "Energize Japan's car manufacturing". The company employs dozens of experts with experience as department and section managers at automotive OEMs and suppliers. As a trusted technology development partner that works closely with customers on their challenges, it provides a wide range of services from design, prototyping, and evaluation to consulting for diverse forms of mobility. Leveraging the unique global network and technological capabilities of a general trading company (sogo shosha), it continues to take on challenges towards the realization of a future mobility society, collaborating with domestic and international partners.
For more information, please visit: https://scautomotiveengineering.com
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/8db5f521-098e-45cd-97c0-c940ff7ba916
Secondmind Engineering AI software
Secondmind helps engineers understand and navigate complex engineering problems — so they can reach better decisions faster, with fewer simulations and less time on the test bench.
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