Nebius launches 2026 physical AI awards with $150k compute prizes and october 25 deadline

Nebius, in partnership with NVIDIA, has launched the 2026 Physical AI Awards, offering five $150,000 compute prizes with an October 25 deadline. The competition, open globally, targets startups with a physical AI product, traction, and a clear scaling plan. Finalists and winners will be announced in mid-November 2026. The awards are divided into five categories, with no entry fees or sponsored categories. Nebius provides GPU-hour rates, allowing winners to convert the prize into concrete compute resources. For instance, $150,000 on H200s equates to about 521 hours on a 64-GPU cluster, or 61,200 GPU-hours at preemptible rates. The judging panel includes industry leaders like Macneil, Moore, Hansen, and Zhou, who have experience in data infrastructure and physical AI. The 2025 edition of the awards received 254 applications, resulting in 55 finalists who collectively received $1.5 million in compute credits. Notable winners like RoboForce and Gather AI have since raised significant funding and scaled their operations. The 2026 program aims to support similar innovations, with a focus on real-world impact and market potential.