Nebius awards AI health startups GPU credits worth $850,000

Nebius has announced the winners of its first AI Discovery Awards, providing GPU cloud and inferencing credits totalling over $850,000 to companies in the healthcare and life sciences sectors.

The awards recognise four companies that are developing AI-driven solutions in cancer prediction, drug discovery, genomics and diagnostics, with each winner receiving $100,000 in GPU credits. The selected companies were chosen from 257 international applications by a panel of 19 independent judges, who represent organisations from biotechnology, pharmaceutical, research and venture capital fields.

Recognised companies

In the biotechnology category, Ataraxis AI received recognition for its cancer treatment prediction platform. The firm's solution achieved 30% higher accuracy than standard genomic tests in clinical validation involving 7,500 patients from 15 different institutions. The company's foundation model, Kestrel, is trained on hundreds of millions of pathology images and supports oncologists in deciding whether aggressive treatment, such as chemotherapy, is warranted.

Aikium, winner in the drug discovery category, focuses on targeting so-called "undruggable" proteins, which account for half of the human proteome, with its Yotta-ML2 platform. The company has established partnerships with four organisations, three of which are leading cancer hospitals, based on its successful work on G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs).

For genomics and multiomics, Transcripta Bio was awarded for building a high-resolution transcriptomic atlas with over one billion gene responses. This resource powers AI models for predicting biological outcomes related to drug molecules. Transcripta Bio has recently partnered with Microsoft Research to uncover new disease-gene associations.

MetaSight Diagnostics, in the healthtech category, has developed population-scale disease diagnostics using advanced blood testing. The company has built a molecular database from more than 500,000 participants in the Israel Multi-OMICS Screening Trial and is developing screening products targeting colorectal cancer and metabolic disorders.

Award programme structure

The Nebius AI Discovery Awards connect selected healthcare and life sciences companies with Nebius's computational infrastructure and technical support. Category winners secured GPU credits worth $100,000 for use on the Nebius AI Cloud, while those coming second and third received credits valued at $50,000 and $30,000, respectively. Other benefits, such as mentorship and networking support, were also provided.

Additionally, seven honourable mentions in each category received $5,000 in GPU credits. All participants were allocated inferencing credits for use on Nebius AI Studio.

Industry perspectives

"These teams are pushing the frontier of AI in healthcare and life sciences with credible science and clear paths to market," said Arkady Volozh, founder and CEO of Nebius. "We're proud to help them turn research into real-world impact."

Dr. Ilya Burkov, Global Head of Healthcare & Life Sciences Growth at Nebius, commented on the significance of the advancements made by the award recipients:

"These companies represent meaningful progress in applying AI to healthcare's most challenging problems. From targeting previously undruggable proteins to predicting cancer treatment outcomes with unprecedented accuracy, these teams are building tools that will directly impact patient care and health outcomes."

Judging and selection

The panel responsible for selecting the winners included representatives from AstraZeneca BioPharma, NVIDIA, Monte Rosa Therapeutics and Utrecht University, among others. The judges evaluated solutions based on scientific validity and market potential. The competition aimed to highlight and support AI projects that demonstrate both technological viability and a clear route to implementation in healthcare and life sciences markets.

The GPU and inferencing credits are intended to help awardees further develop, test, and scale their AI platforms. This support is expected by Nebius to play a role in transforming research outcomes into products and services.

The AI Discovery Awards form part of Nebius's activities to foster AI development in healthcare-related fields through practical support and access to computational resources. The company operates from its headquarters in Amsterdam, with research and development centres across Europe, North America and Israel.