Confirmed as an Official Supporter of La Roche-Posay Racing Team, Siemens is bringing a suite of digital engineering tools to the French America's Cup campaign as the programme gathers momentum ahead of Naples 2027. The partnership centres on the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio, giving the team access to Designcenterâ„¢ X software for design work and Simcenterâ„¢ X software for simulation, both aimed at sharpening the technical foundations the team will need at the 38th America's Cup.
At the highest levels of sailing competition, the differences between winning and losing are rarely dramatic. A handful of grams removed from a component, the relationship between structural loading and hydrodynamic forces, an aerodynamic refinement that only registers its value once the boat is moving under race conditions: these are the margins that campaigns are built around. La Roche-Posay Racing Team has been developing an integrated design operation to handle exactly that level of complexity, one where sporting staff, engineers, simulation specialists, and technical partners stay in close and continuous contact. The Siemens tools are positioned to sit at the centre of that environment.
Designcenter X gives the team a collaborative design platform, accessible remotely and structured so that multiple project groups can work on shared models at the same time rather than in isolation. That parallel working improves data flow across groups and shortens the distance between a first concept and a decision that can be acted on. Simcenter X adds a multidomain simulation environment where competing technical options can be analysed, compared, and validated well before physical construction or modification begins.
Antoine Carraz, Technical Director of La Roche-Posay Racing Team, was direct about what having these tools available means in practice. "In an America's Cup campaign, the ability to design, test, correct and validate quickly is absolutely decisive. The integration of Siemens' digital solutions allows us to gain fluidity, responsiveness and precision in our development processes," he said. "Siemens Xcelerator give us the means to strengthen collaboration between our teams, better capitalize on our data and advance our technical choices with an increasingly rigorous approach."
Those qualities carry particular weight given the nature of America's Cup development. The racing boat in this competition is never a finished object. On-water sessions produce performance data, sailors provide feedback, class rule constraints shape what modifications are possible, and simulation findings open new avenues of inquiry. A campaign's boat evolves continuously throughout the programme, and the speed at which a team can move through analysis, refinement, and validation often determines how much development ground is covered before racing gets underway.
That iterative cycle is exactly what the Siemens digital tools are designed to support. When design data moves freely between teams, models are straightforward to share, and simulation can be used to compare competing hypotheses, the distance between a concept and a confident technical commitment becomes considerably shorter. Simulation is especially valuable in this context because it reduces reliance on physical prototyping. The team can examine how components behave under load, identify where mechanical stress is likely to concentrate, and understand how different systems interact with one another, all before committing to a build. In a programme where development timelines leave little room and every modification needs solid backing, cutting down on physical iteration carries genuine strategic weight.
Pascal Bourcet, Country Manager for France at Siemens Digital Industries Software, placed the partnership in its broader context. "The America's Cup is one the most demanding arenas for digital engineering. With Siemens DISW solutions, teams leverage fully connected digital thread, combining high-fidelity simulation, data-driven engineering and lifecycle collaboration, to innovate faster while mastering complexity and mitigating risk at every stage," he said. "We are proud to support La Roche-Posay Racing Team in this new campaign and to put Siemens Xcelerator at the service of an ambitious French project, at the crossroads of elite sport, technology and innovation."
On the design side, Designcenter X draws on the capabilities of Designcenter NX and delivers them through a secure, flexible SaaS environment, allowing teams to create, adjust, share, and refine their digital models from wherever they happen to be working. For La Roche-Posay Racing Team, it will anchor the design workflow and help compress the time between an idea and its execution. Simcenter X complements that with a scalable simulation suite capable of multidomain analysis, giving the team the means to explore technical possibilities and test assumptions ahead of any physical validation. Together, the two platforms form a connected thread running from early concept through to build-ready decisions.
With Siemens now confirmed among its Official Supporters, La Roche-Posay Racing Team continues building the technological foundation it will need to compete at the 38th America's Cup. In a contest where fine detail routinely shapes outcomes, the capacity to design at pace, simulate with precision, and act on stronger information is central to how the French team intends to advance its pursuit of performance.
