Pathkey.AI Ltd (ASX:PKY) subsidiary Chipforge has secured its first commercial customer contract, bringing forward the commercialisation of its AI-powered chip design platform and generating the platform’s first customer revenue ahead of its general release.
The contract, with an Australian industrial automation company, is a US$50,000 fixed-fee, 10-week proof-of-value program under which Chipforge will design and demonstrate the intelligence unit for the customer’s automated cleaning and condition-monitoring system.
The work will incorporate real-time object recognition, automated decision logic and deterministic control, with the design to be demonstrated end-to-end on FPGA hardware.
First revenue validates commercial demand
The agreement represents Chipforge’s first arm’s-length paid contract with an external customer and comes before the platform has been released generally.
Pathkey sees the engagement as evidence of early demand from its target market of industrial enterprises across the Asia-Pacific region that require custom hardware but do not maintain full in-house chip design teams.
The US$50,000 fee will be paid in 2 stages, with 40% due on acceptance of Phase A and 60% on acceptance of Phase B. Pathkey noted that while the contract is not financially material to the group on its own, it is significant as Chipforge’s first commercial customer engagement.
Pathkey CEO Andrew Farnsworth said the agreement would allow Chipforge to demonstrate its technology on a real customer product before general release.
“We set out to prove the flow on a real customer product before general release, and this Contract does exactly that,” he said.
Chipforge to demonstrate design flow on customer hardware
The project will be delivered in 2 phases over 10 weeks.
Phase A will produce the use-case definition, system architecture and interface control documentation required for the customer’s build. Phase B will cover the design, verification and demonstration of the vision and control components on FPGA hardware, culminating in a recorded end-to-end demonstration and documented handover.
Chipforge is developing an AI-native design and verification platform intended to shorten the process from design intent through to verified hardware across FPGA and ASIC targets.
About Pathkey.AI
Pathkey.AI is an Australian technology company developing proprietary AI-powered large language model solutions for data-intensive industries.
Its portfolio includes Chipforge, focused on semiconductor chip design and verification, and TrialKey, which targets clinical trial design and optimisation.
Both platforms use an agent-based AI architecture combining large language models with neuro-symbolic reasoning, with AI agents generating, assessing and refining potential solutions against defined objectives.