[3][4] Swanson developed the initial ANSYS software on punch cards and used a mainframe computer that was rented by the hour.

[5] By 1991, SASI had 153 employees and $29 million in annual revenue,[6] controlling 10 percent of the market for finite element analysis software.

[9][10] In November 2020, South China Morning Post reported that Ansys software had been used for Chinese military research in the development of hypersonic missile technology.

[8] Ansys Mechanical finite element analysis software uses computer models to simulate structures, electronics, or machine components to evaluate the strength, toughness, elasticity, temperature distribution, electromagnetism, fluid flow, and other attributes.

[6] For example, Ansys software may simulate how a bridge will hold up after years of traffic, how to best process salmon in a cannery to reduce waste, or how to design a slide that uses less material without sacrificing safety.

[6] Typically Ansys users break down larger structures into small components that are each modeled and tested individually.

[4] A user may start by defining the dimensions of an object,[47] and then adding weight, pressure, temperature and other physical properties.

[47] Finally, the Ansys software simulates and analyzes movement, fatigue, fractures, fluid flow, temperature distribution, electromagnetic efficiency and other effects over time.

[6][15] At the time, the software was made up of boxes of punch cards, and the program was typically run overnight to get results the following morning.

[3] Version 8.0 introduced the Ansys multi-field solver, which allows users to simulate how multiple physics problems would interact with one another.

Ansys also released its Probabilistic Design System and DesignXplorer software products, which both deal with probabilities and randomness of physical elements.

[46] In February 2015, version 16 introduced the AIM physics engine and Electronics Desktop, which is for semiconductor design.

[52] The following year, version 17 introduced a new user interface and performance improvement for computing fluid dynamics problems.

[61] In 2021, Optimo Medical AG integrated their Optimeyes digital twin technology with Ansys Mechanical to create identical copies of cornea for surgical procedure testing purposes.

[40] The company began supporting Arm-based Graviton2 Processors, first time that Ansys' EDA semiconductor simulation solutions were made available on the Arm Neoverse architecture.

[67] In April, 2022, Ansys announced signing a definitive agreement to acquire OnScale to expand its cloud portfolio.

[43] In December, 2022, Ansys announced that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire DYNAmore, which specialises in developing simulation solutions for the automotive industry.