Nebius Debuts the Robotics & Physical AI Awards and Summit to Support Next-Generation Startups With $1.5 Million in Compute Credits

• Event unites founders, researchers, and investors to accelerate the next wave of physical AI breakthroughs

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Nebius (NASDAQ: NBIS), a leading AI infrastructure company, today announced the winners of the 2025 Nebius Robotics and Physical AI Awards, created to spotlight and accelerate global startups pioneering the next frontier of physical AI.

Hosted at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View on December 9, the Nebius Robotics and Physical AI Awards and Summit celebrated the most promising emerging startups in physical AI. Finalists delivered live demos followed by expert-led discussions featuring leading researchers, industry innovators, and investors. Nebius awarded $1.5 million in Nebius AI Cloud compute and inference credits, accelerated by NVIDIA AI Infrastructure, along with its Pioneer Award for breakthrough progress. Shanda Grab Ventures also presented a $100,000 investment in one startup.

“After judging more than 50 finalists, it’s clear that the most exciting progress in robotics is coming from early-stage teams,” said Evan Helda, Nebius’s Head of Physical AI, who joined this month to lead the company’s physical AI vertical. “As advances in world models, simulation, and autonomy accelerate, Nebius is becoming the backbone for teams pushing robots from prototype to production.”

“We understand exactly what these teams need at the infrastructure layer to overcome their toughest challenges,” Helda continued. “And by collaborating with founders and researchers across the industry — many of whom came together for the Summit — we’re removing the barriers that slow them down to unlock the next frontier of physical AI."

Nebius awarded a combined $1.5 million in cloud compute and inference credits to 16 physical AI and robotics startups that judges selected from over 250 applicants from over 60 countries. The judging panel included representatives from Nebius, NVIDIA, Open AI, Physical Intelligence, ABB, Kholsa Ventures, Accel, Radical Ventures, Next47 and Shanda Grab Ventures.

The top winner in each award category received $150,000 in cloud compute and inference credits, while second and third place winners were awarded $100,000 and $50,000 worth of credits, respectively. The award categories included Data Engines, Synthetic Data and Simulation, Foundation Models, Robot Brains and Runtime, Industrial Robotics Deployment and Transformation, and Vision AI and Streaming Video Analytics.

“Accelerating physical AI requires a convergence of advanced simulation, model training, and AI infrastructure from edge to cloud,” said Amit Goel, NVIDIA’s Head of Robotics and Edge Computing Ecosystem, who gave a keynote at the event. “The Nebius Physical AI and Robotics Awards recognize the startups at the forefront of this shift, demonstrating the value of a collaborative ecosystem that provides the resources founders need to scale from prototype to production.”

As part of the awards program, Shanda Grab Ventures also selected Buildroid AI, which operates a simulation-first construction platform, for a $100,000 SAFE investment to drive the next breakthrough in physical AI.

“Being part of the judging panel and seeing the strength of the applicants — alongside experts across research, industry, and venture — underscored the real progress emerging founders are making in physical AI,” said Christine Qing, Partner & VP of Shanda Grab Ventures. “Selecting Buildroid AI for the $100,000 investment reflects our belief that targeted early capital, combined with Nebius’ infrastructure support, helps founders accelerate the technical steps that move the field forward.”

At the event, Nebius also recognized standout startups with the 2025 Nebius Robotics & Physical AI Pioneer Award, honoring breakthrough achievements in research, scalability, and real-world deployment of robotics and physical intelligence. The award was presented to the founders of Foxglove, DYNA Robotics, Physical Intelligence and Agility Robotics.

“Physical AI is moving from promise to reality, and that shift calls for a robust ecosystem that helps developers learn, iterate, and scale,” said Adrian Macneil, CEO and co-founder of Foxglove. “Gathering the community at the Nebius Robotics and Physical AI Awards reinforces how important shared tools and developer infrastructure are to unlock the next generation of robotics.”

Hosted by Nebius for Startups, the Nebius Robotics and Physical AI Awards and Summit follows the company’s AI Discovery Awards, which supported startups in healthcare and life sciences in June 2025. With each program, Nebius deepens its commitment to delivering vertical-specific AI infrastructure, resources, and recognition for the next generation of AI-native companies.

2025 Nebius Robotics and Physical AI Awards Winners

Data Engines, Synthetic Data and Simulation:
1^st Place: Buildroid AI
2^nd Place: Parallel Domain
3^rd Place: Palatial & Duality AI

Foundation Models, Robot Brains and Runtime:
1^st Place: RLWLD
2^nd Place: Virgo
3^rd Place: OpenMind & General Robotics

Industrial Robotics Deployment and Transformation:
1^st Place: RoboForce
2^nd Place: Industrial Next
3rd Place: Anyware Robotics & Simbe Robotics

Vision AI and Streaming Video Analytics:
1^st place: Gather AI
2^nd Place: Assaia
3^rd Place: Earlipoint Health & Surveily

To learn more about Nebius for Startups visit: nebius.com/startups and to learn more about Nebius’s dedicated AI infrastructure support for physical AI and robotics companies visit: nebius.com/solutions/physical-ai-and-robotics.

About Nebius

Nebius is a technology company building full-stack infrastructure to service the high-growth global AI industry. Headquartered in Amsterdam and listed on Nasdaq, Nebius has a global footprint with R&D hubs across Europe, North America and Israel.

Nebius’s AI-native cloud platform has been built for intensive AI workloads. With a full stack of purposefully designed and tuned proprietary software and hardware designed in-house, Nebius gives AI builders the compute, storage, managed services and tools they need to build, tune and run their models and applications.

Find out more at www.nebius.com

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Source: Nebius