The tire industry is making increasingly higher demands for low-weight and low-rolling-resistance tires to meet performance and sustainability goals. The application of high-strength steel cord has seen strong growth to meet these requirements. When switching to the higher-strength (UT or even MT) steel cord, with the reduction of steel weight and thinner ply gauge, whether the tire stiffness is compromised remains a question. In this study, finite element simulation has been carried out to look into the effect on stiffness of the change to higher-tensile class steel cord. At first, the simulation is done on the belt ply package. Then the cornering stiffness of a PCR tire using HT, UT and MT ply packages is simulated with a benchmark tire model. The results show that adequate tire stiffness can be realized by optimizing steel cord architecture for lower-weight tires using higher-strength steel cord.