The Good Tech Companies - Inside Zenode’s Ambitious Mission to Disrupt Electronic Design Through Artificial Intelligence

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

This story was originally published on HackerNoon at: https://hackernoon.com/inside-zenodes-ambitious-mission-to-disrupt-electronic-design-through-artificial-intelligence. Zenode’s AI-powered search engine reads datasheets, streamlining PCB design by helping engineers find the right components faster and with greater accuracy. Check more stories related to machine-learning at: https://hackernoon.com/c/machine-learning. You can also check exclusive content about #zenode-ai, #hardware-design-automation, #pcb-design-ai, #ai-for-engineers, #datasheet-analysis-ai, #ai-hardware-innovation, #electronic-design-automation, #good-company, and more. This story was written by: @jonstojanjournalist. Learn more about this writer by checking @jonstojanjournalist's about page, and for more stories, please visit hackernoon.com. Zenode, founded by Brandon Bourn and Collin Stoner, is tackling hardware design bottlenecks with AI. Their intelligent search engine reads and interprets electronic component datasheets, enabling engineers to find optimal parts faster. By cutting manual work and boosting precision, Zenode aims to accelerate PCB development and push hardware innovation beyond today’s limits.

This audio is presented by Hacker Noon, where anyone can learn anything about any technology. Inside Zinode's ambitious mission to disrupt electronic design through artificial intelligence by John Stoy and journalist. Photo credit. Zenoed Brandon Bourne and Colin Stoner, founders of Z node, are tackling a persistent challenge in hardware engineering. Why are engineers still bogged down by manual design processes that have not changed much in decades, especially in an ageware machines that can learn and adapt exist? As a remedy, Brandon and Collinare rethinking the electronics design process with AI, starting with their newly launched search engine for electronic components. Z-Node's core

innovation is an AI model that can read and understand component data sheets, the instruction manuals for the processors, power supplies, sensors, etc. That lay at the heart of modern electronics. Using that model, the team seeks to automate many of the mundane and repetitive tasks that plague development, thus leading to faster design and production without sacrificing precision. For Brandon Bourne and Colin Stoner, the goal is to let AI handle the heavy lifting so engineers can focus their energy on the creative side of the job, making the entire process smarter, quicker, and more efficient. Fitting hardware into a software-driven world, in a world that often celebrate software achievements, hardware development can seem slow and

mundane to those on the outside. On the other hand, hardware is the unsung hero of model. innovation to those within the industry. For every sleek smartphone or powerful supercomputer, there is a labyrinth of circuits powering its functionality. Creating these circuits, the printed circuit boards, PCBs, is tedious, but a single misstep spells disaster. ASEACH design must account for hundreds, sometimes thousands, of components, ensuring they fit perfectly within strict space and power limitations. This is where Z-node enters. We are fast returning to the time where hardware development again becomes the bottleneck for innovation, Brandon Bourne explains. With AI, we are trying to remove or at least reduce that barrier. The company's first product is an AI search

engine to assist engineers in finding the best parts for their designs. This tackles the very first step in the design process, where engineers traditionally spend countless hours reading through potential component data sheets before building out their initial bomb and moving into their CAD software. Much of this time is wasted reading parts that when work for their needs, but before AI, there was no way to know this without first reading through hundreds of pages of dense engineering information. A new spark. AI ignites the future of hardware design. The potential impact of this technology is massive. Based on the industry scrant pulse rate, the demand for smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient hardware is expected to soar in

2026 and beyond. Yet innovation often hits AWOL when traditional tools cannot keep up. Z-Nodes AI could change that, companies to push the envelope on everything from consumer electronics to autonomous vehicles. Z-Node operates as the first ever intelligent search engine for electronic components, transforming how engineers approach circuit design. Unlike traditional online catalogs, which require heavy amounts of user interaction totitermen categories, set filters, and red data sheets. ZNode uses a large language model, LLM, allowing users to enter natural language queries. Essentially, it lets the AI sift through the thousands of options to find the most relevant parts. Engineers can narrow their search to meet precise specifications by applying

parametric filters. And when key information is buried in the data sheet instead of the specs, Znode's deep dive allows users to get answers across all the parts in seconds, instead of slogging through the moan by one. Z node, where AI hype meets engineering reality. 2025 may well go down as the peak year for AI hype, but Zinode takes a different approach. In sharp contrast to the sea of software for hardware, competitors raising millions of venture capital on promises of one-click design automation, Zanode refuses to overhype their capabilities. We've been in this industry for over a decade, we know better than to over-promise and under-deliver, said Brandon.

AI is powerful, but hardware development isn't something you can shortcut. As for what's next, the company is keeping a tight lid on expectations. Developing AI is very different from traditional software, says Colin Stoner, co-founder and CTO. It can work fantastic in a sandbox, but then users change a few words in a prompt and it doesn't work at all. Given that a single mistake during hardware development can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars, ensuring a high level of accuracy isn't optional, it's table stakes. Despite their refusal to give into the hype, there's a question. quiet confidence in how Brandon and Colin talk about the future. Zinode's roadmap might be staying

under wraps, but the subtext is unmistakable. AI is going to change how, and what engineers can build. Thank you for listening to this Hackernoon story, read by artificial intelligence. Visit hackernoon.com to read, write, learn and publish.