Nebius Physical AI Awards
Get Recognized as a leading Physical AI startup by a panel of experts from Nebius, NVIDIA, and the industry.
Applications close October 25, 2026.
Judged by Physical AI leaders
Judged by Physical AI leaders
Applications are reviewed by a panel selected by Nebius and NVIDIA, with leading investors and industry executives weighing in on the strongest entries. Submissions are scored on depth of innovation, breadth of implementation, market potential, and the real-world impact.
No entry fees or sponsored categories. Just a chance to elevate your team’s achievements.
Support that continues on
Support that continues on
Winning is the start of an ongoing relationship with Nebius and NVIDIA. Winners receive a seat at an upcoming executive dinner alongside enterprise leaders, investors, and the judges who selected them, plus curated introductions, features in our content, promotion of the win, and AI cloud compute credits.
Prizes that boost your business
Use the momentum from being recognized to grow: compute credits, GTM amplification, and executive mentorship.
$150,000
Nebius compute credits for each category winner, to put straight into your next training run.
Program timeline
July 15, 2026
Applications open
October 25, 2026
Application deadline
November 7, 2026
Finalists announced
November 18, 2026
Winners announced
2026 award categories
Apply to the category that best fits your product. Companies with multiple products may apply to additional categories.
Physical AI Models
Physical AI models powering perception, reasoning, and action, including VLA models, VLMs, world models, and reinforcement learning.
Perception & Spatial Intelligence
The sensing and interpretation stack that helps machines see and navigate. Includes computer vision, SLAM, sensor fusion, and scene understanding.
Simulation & Synthetic Data
The environments and data engines that systems learn from before real-world deployment, including physics-based simulation, digital twins, and sim-to-real transfer.
Systems & Deployment
The platforms bringing Physical AI into commercial use, including humanoids, industrial robots, AMRs, and warehouse automation.
Software, Tooling & Orchestration
The developer infrastructure for building and scaling intelligent machines, including middleware, MLOps, benchmarking, fleet management, and deployment tooling.
Eligibility criteria: the project should have a clear Physical AI use case, an MVP in active use or testing, a registered entity and a live public website.
Judging committee 2026
Evan Helda
Head of Physical AI at Nebius
Anu Maheshwari
Head of Venture Ecosystem at Nebius
Sumay Parikh
Robotics & Physical AI Startup Lead at NVIDIA
Adrian McNeil
CEO at Foxglove
Harry Mellsop
Co-founder at Antioch
Brian Moore
Co-founder and CEO at Voxel51
Ulrik Stig Hansen
Co-Founder Co-CEO, Encord
Amber Yang
Partner, Lightspeed
Calvin Zhou
Co-founder & VP of Engineering, RoboForce
Where are the 2025 winners now
254 startups applied in 2025. Judges and partners from across the industry picked 55 finalists, who shared $1.5 million in Nebius compute credits.
RoboForce
RoboForce won for Industrial Robotics and began building on Nebius AI cloud. The team has since raised a $52 million round, booked 11,000 robot orders, and was named a Technology Pioneer at World Economic Forum
Gather AI
Gather AI won for Vision AI and Analytics and later closed a $40M series B led by Smith Point Capital and has since been featured in Forbes and TechCrunch.
Virgo
Virgo finished second in the Foundation Models category and in 2026 won at the Nebius AI Discovery Awards. They also appeared on the Nebius for Startups podcast.
Apply by October 25
Applications for the 2026 Physical AI Awards are open until October 25.
About NVIDIA Inception
NVIDIA Inception is a free program that guides AI startups through the NVIDIA platform and ecosystem. From prototype to production, Inception meets startups where they are, with benefits to help them discover new AI opportunities, build with world-class technologies, and grow their businesses.
FAQ
Applications for the 2026 program close October 25, 2026. Apply before then to be considered.