At the Inception Awards ceremony held during the NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference (GTC), six startups that showcased ideas utilizing artificial intelligence were selected and awarded $1.5 million in prize money.

This awards ceremony is the first event of NVIDIA’s Inception virtual accelerator program, through which NVIDIA is currently providing various resources, such as GPUs and networking, to 1,300 AI startups worldwide.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, along with executives from Goldman Sachs, Fidelity Investments, SoftBank, Microsoft, and Coatue Management, served as judges for this year's winner selection. Based on the presentations of the 14 finalist teams held in San Francisco last month, the judges selected the first and second place teams in three categories: notable emerging companies, top innovative companies, and best social innovation companies.

At the awards ceremony, the first-place teams were each awarded $375,000 and the second-place teams $125,000 in prize money.


Hottest emerging companies
The technology in this category can lower the cost of blood tests by utilizing Athelas's device, which costs only $500. It is currently undergoing FDA review and is being sold to hospitals and home users. Twenty-year-old Athelas founder Tanay Tandon commented, “It is great that NVIDIA, which is shaping and leading the AI industry, is supporting related startups,” adding, “This award will serve as motivation for us to continue moving forward.”

Second place was awarded to Focal Systems, which is introducing artificial intelligence to grocery stores. Focal Systems, located in Menlo Park, California, developed a deep learning algorithm that installs GPU servers on shelves and mounts tablet computers and cameras on shopping carts, enabling shoppers to find products, check sale items, and pay for purchased groceries without having to go to the checkout counter. If the product sells out, a notification is provided to the distributor.

Most disruptive companies
Deep Instinct, based in Israel, took the top spot. Cybersecurity emerged as a major issue following the incident last year in which Russia hacked Democratic Party computers during the U.S. presidential campaign. In response, the company developed GPU-accelerated deep learning software capable of detecting malware in real time. Its neural network, trained on hundreds of millions of files, learns to detect security threats and leverages that experience to predict new attacks. David Eli, co-founder and CEO of Deep Instinct, noted that while over one million new malware threats are discovered daily, most antivirus software focuses only on existing threats.

Second place went to Smartvid.io, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Smartvid.io believes that while safety experts inspect sites, that is not enough. Smartvid.io developed an AI inspector capable of detecting hazards in videos collected from construction sites.

Social innovation
The winner of the Social Innovation Enterprise category is Genetesisek, based in Cincinnati. In the United States, there are 10 million emergency room visits due to chest pain. Currently, it is very difficult to determine whether chest pain is related to heart disease, such as a heart attack, or if there are other causes. In some cases, electrocardiogram results are insufficient to draw a conclusion, so it is common for patients to have to endure several hours of additional testing.

Genetesis is currently conducting clinical trials for CardioFlux, a non-invasive biomagnetic imaging system that measures minute magnetic fields generated by the heart. GPU-based CardioFlux generates a 3D map of the heart's electrical performance in just 90 seconds, providing medical professionals with a fast and accurate method to diagnose blocked blood vessels and pinpoint their exact locations.

Ranked second is San Francisco-based Bay Labs. Bay Labs aims to address heart disease issues by enabling general practitioners to utilize affordable ultrasound scanners. The company aims to improve the convenience of interpreting scan data by training GPU-accelerated deep learning software to recognize ultrasound images. Bay Labs stated that utilizing its solution would increase the number of users by approximately eight times compared to existing ultrasound equipment, and reduce the cost per scan from $400 to $50.

Jensen Huang, Founder and CEO of NVIDIA, who personally attended the event to congratulate the winners, stated, “Thanks to NVIDIA’s journey to create a new computing platform 10 years ago, the startups gathered here today have been able to make new discoveries and contribute to the world,” adding, “I am truly moved by the achievements of the promising startups gathered here.”