- Quilter’s AI built a dual-PCB Linux computer in just a week
- The system booted Debian on the first try with minimal human assistance
- Engineers spent only 38.5 hours, while AI completed most of the design
Los Angeles-based startup Quilter has unveiled Project Speedrun, a Linux computer built entirely with AI assistance.
The machine includes 843 components across dual circuit boards, and the team designed and assembled it in just one week.
Remarkably, the computer booted Debian on its first try and required only 38.5 hours of human intervention.
Training for precision, not imitation
The performance of this device stands in stark contrast to traditional workflows, which typically require approximately three months of expert work to complete a similar project.
The AI handled the iterative design, execution, and cleanup phases that usually stifle engineers’ creativity and slow development timelines.
Quilter trained its AI differently than large language models like GPT-5 or Claude.
Instead of studying human-designed boards, which often contain errors, the system learned by optimizing against the physical laws that govern circuit design.
This approach prevented human limitations from limiting its capabilities.
By focusing on physics-based optimization rather than emulation, the AI suggested new layouts and component arrangements.
In theory, it surpasses human designers in efficiency and innovation, although engineers still oversee the process.
Their role shifted to supervision and creative refinement rather than repetitive execution.
By removing manual bottlenecks, engineers can iterate faster and explore more experimental designs.
The traditional three-step workflow of setup, execution, and cleanup often introduces errors during execution that then require additional human correction.
Quilter’s AI removes much of this friction, allowing smaller teams to complete complex workstation designs in a fraction of the usual time.
The result is a project that delivers a fully functional system while reducing the human workload, which can lower the barriers for startups creating custom mobile workstations and mini PCs.
Quilter’s CEO, Sergiy Nesterenko, envisions a future where AI designs not only match human engineers, but can “come up with better circuit board designs than humans have ever tried to do.”
While Quilter’s approach could accelerate innovation, its long-term reliability across more complex systems remains unproven.
Via Tom’s hardware
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