Aaron Chow builds machine learning tools that redesign manufacturing

For decades, engineers have faced the same frustrating trade-off: reduce a part's weight or maintain its strength. Rarely both. The design process to thread that needle has been painstakingly slow, requiring months of simulation and iteration — with no guarantee of finding the optimal solution.

Aaron Chow is changing that equation. As CEO of Vixiv, he's pioneering machine learning-driven lattice generation that automatically designs the internal structure of parts to meet specific performance requirements. The result is components that are lighter, stronger, and optimized in ways traditional engineering simply can't achieve at scale.

"We're solving a fundamental challenge in advanced manufacturing: how do you design parts that are not only functional, but optimized for material, structure, and mechanics?" Chow explains. "Traditionally, if you want to reduce the weight of a component without sacrificing strength, an engineer will go through an extensive design iteration process to narrow down to one solution. This is slow, expensive, and it is almost guaranteed that you still won't find the optimal design."

With over a decade of experience in additive manufacturing and collaborations with industry leaders including Autodesk, GE Aviation, and NASA, Chow's work spans aerospace, medical, defense, and heavy industry. His technology bridges the gap between design innovation and real-world production, helping companies rapidly find optimal part geometries without the traditional months-long cycle.

Under Chow's leadership, Vixiv is positioning advanced latticing solutions as the next evolution in digital engineering — tools that could reshape how anything gets designed and built.

Aaron's vision for midwest manufacturing

Vixiv's Cincinnati headquarters isn't an accident. The city has deep roots in advanced manufacturing that few realize.

"Cincinnati was the first location of metal 3D printers in the US with industrial printing capabilities coming in 2003," Chow notes. "This has built up a knowledge and talent base here in the Midwest, where combined with customers and Oak Ridge National Labs and Air Force Research Laboratory, it has created a hotbed here of expertise."

That foundation matters as manufacturing reshapes itself. "The Midwest has always been a powerhouse in manufacturing, and is the right place for ripe re-onshoring efforts in the coming years," he says. "We see our technology revitalizing what the Midwest does best — manufacturing — and we see the US being able to manufacture things that no one else on the planet can design and build."

Vixiv's technology has the potential to address one of manufacturing's most persistent challenges: the growing skills gap. "This technology will allow sophisticated groups to build more, better, faster, and allow other manufacturers to bridge some of the skill gap that has been so difficult to do recently," Chow explains.

Picturing the next generation of engineering tools

"Vixiv is developing the new generation of digital engineering tools," Chow says. "The 1980s saw the adoption of CAD and the elimination of drafting tables, and the tools Vixiv is developing will see adoption across everyone who designs and builds anything with any technology. Vixiv technology allows us to take all of the engineering learnings of everyone and make it accessible to all teams."

It's an ambitious vision: democratizing advanced engineering knowledge the way CAD democratized technical drawing. And Chow sees the Midwest, with its manufacturing legacy, technical talent base, and proximity to national research labs, as the natural place to build it.

This profile is part of the OhioX and Ohio Tech News Next25, a series highlighting the leaders, 35 and under, driving the state's innovation economy. From responsible AI to medtech breakthroughs, discover the full class of 2025. Meet the Next25.