The AI for Industry Challenge is an open competition for developers and roboticists who want to tackle some of the hardest, high-impact problems that exist in robotics and manufacturing today. Begins February 11, 2026.
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Read through our challenge rules and FAQs
There is a combined $180,000 prize pool
The registration deadline is April 17, 2026
The AI for Industry Challenge targets a high-value bottleneck in modern manufacturing: electronics assembly. More specifically dexterous cable management and insertion, which today is a manual, repetitive process.
In terms of robotics, this task is notoriously difficult due to the complex physics of flexible cables and the precision required to see, handle and carefully insert connectors.
Train an AI model using open-source simulators (e.g., Isaac Sim, MuJoCo, Gazebo), leveraging ROS for communication. This is your opportunity to bridge the sim-to-real gap and make real progress against a very real problem.
Finalists will deploy their models from simulation to a physical workcell which will be hosted at Intrinsic’s HQ. The top five solutions and teams win a share of the $180,000 prize pool
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During qualification, use your favorite tools, including open source tools and simulators, along with the Intrinsic challenge toolkit, to train your model and solve the cable insertion task. Submitted models will be evaluated using Gazebo.
For those who advance to phase #1 - teams will gain access to Intrinsic Flowstate, our development environment, and the Intrinsic Vision Model to build a complete robotic cable handling solution using their trained models.
Phase #2 participants will get the chance to deploy their solution to a robotic workcell set up at Intrinsic’s HQ - for real world solution validation and a chance to win prizes.
Please refer to our official challenge rules for all information relating to eligibility and participation in the AI for Industry Challenge.
For answers to more commons question, please refer to our FAQs at the bottom of the page.
To participate in the challenge, please complete and submit the registration form by April 17, 2026. After this date, we will not accept new applications for individuals or teams.
You can participate either individually or as part of a team. After registering for the challenge, you will have the opportunity to register your team name and invite members to join your team.
If you are participating individually, you will still need to enter a team name on the team registration form.
Team rules:
Each team will designate one team leader during the team registration process. The team leader can make updates to the team and is responsible for managing team submissions on behalf of the team.
Prize distribution will be communicated to team leaders after registration.
The AI for Industry Challenge invites participants to tackle complex dexterous manipulation tasks inspired by real-world assembly problems in electronics.
The core focus is the assembly and wiring of server trays, from the insertion of various connectors to complete cable handling.
Automating cable assembly and wiring is a notoriously difficult automation challenge due to the high mix and variance between cable types, the high cost of errors and the complex technical hurdles of modeling and manipulating deformable objects.
The challenge will officially begin on February 11 and run through July 2026. It has three phases:
Each participant who registers will receive a toolkit as part of the challenge, which includes:
*Please note partner toolkits and formats may differ.
Teams that qualify for phase #1 will gain access to Intrinsic Flowstate, our development environment. In Flowstate, you can integrate your trained model and leverage Intrinsic’s capabilities to build, debug, and validate your complete solution.
Participants will also receive access to the Intrinsic Vision Model (IVM)—our award-winning foundation model for a variety of perception tasks. IVM uses a growing set of specialized transformers to support advanced perception tasks.
At each phase, teams must submit their models or solutions to be considered for advancement in the challenge and eligibility for prizes. Each team leader will receive a unique authentication token to upload submissions. Teams may make multiple submissions before the submission deadline.
Scoring across all three phases of the challenge will be automated and determined by a combination of the following evaluation criteria:
In addition to quantitative scoring, a panel of expert judges will review and evaluate final submissions based on criteria such as innovation, technical soundness, scalability, and alignment with the challenge mission.
Judges will be announced at a later date.
Registration will begin on October 27, 2025 and remain open until April 17, 2026. You can register at any point during that period.
The challenge will officially begin on February 11, 2026, where participants will receive access to a toolkit to begin working with their teams. If you register for the challenge after February 11, 2026, you will receive access to the toolkit within 24 hours of signing up. Participants who join later will still be able to fully participate and compete with other teams.
From February 2026, the challenge will run for approximately six months.
You’re eligible to join the challenge if you meet three basic requirements:
For more details, you can review the challenge rules.
Yes. We follow the same sanctions and export controls maintained by the United States Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), United States Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry & Security and other applicable regulations. Sanctioned countries and regions include: Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Ukraine (Crimea, Sevastopol, Donetsk and Luhansk regions). We also follow the same guidelines according to our “Google Cloud Platform (GCP)” services platform because to use Intrinsic Flowstate, you’ll need access to Google Cloud. Google has stopped accepting new cloud customers in Russia. While GCP itself is not blocked in the People’s Republic of China, access to services hosted on it can be unpredictable due to firewall restrictions.
You can participate either individually or as part of a team—but not both. If you choose to participate individually, you’ll still need to register as a team of one and provide a team name during the team registration process.
You are responsible for forming your own team or joining one. Intrinsic will not be able to facilitate participant team matchmaking for this particular challenge.
After registering for the AI for Industry Challenge, you’ll receive email instructions with a link to the team registration form to enter your team name and add team members. Make sure to reach out to your team members and confirm their participation before entering your team members in the form.
The deadline for both individual and team registration is April 17, 2026.
Yes, each team will designate one team leader during the team registration process. The team leader can make updates to the team and is responsible for managing team submissions on behalf of the team. Also:
There are three phases:
Qualification phase: All participants will train a model for cable insertion using open-source tools or any other tools available to them, including a simulator of their choice, and using the Intrinsic-provided developer toolkit.
Phase #1: 30 teams will be selected from qualification phase to phase #1, to develop a robust cable handling solution using their model. During phase #1, participants will gain access to Intrinsic Flowstate, our development environment, along with additional Intrinsic capabilities, including the Intrinsic Vision Model.
Phase #2: 10 teams from phase #1 will move forward to phase #2, the final phase, where they will have the opportunity to remotely deploy, run, and refine their solution on a real physical robot workcell, managed at the Intrinsic offices in California, USA.
The 30 teams who advance to phase #1 will gain access to Intrinsic Flowstate, other Intrinsic capabilities, and the Intrinsic Vision Model. Please note that Intrinsic Flowstate and the Intrinsic Vision Model are not available during the qualification phase of the competition and are to be used for the purposes of the challenge only during phase #1 and phase #2.
Team leaders and members can make submissions to the portal with an unique authentication token.
Please note: Only team leaders will receive an unique authentication token, however they can share this token with the team members to submit on their behalf. All team members have to be registered for the challenge before submitting.
Teams can make multiple submissions before the submission deadlines. However, there will be a mandatory cool-down period between each submission.
The unique authentication token will be included in the participants toolkit, sent to team leaders. This will be sent on February 11, 2026 for participants who registered beforehand, or within 24 hours for participants who register afterwards.
Submissions are evaluated through a combination of automated scoring and expert panel review. Automated scoring is based on key performance metrics, including task success, precision, safety, and cycle time. In phase #2, a panel of selected expert judges will assess final submissions and may award bonuses or penalties based on factors such as innovation, technical soundness, and scalability. Prizes will be awarded to the teams with the highest overall scores.
Qualification phase - by June 30, 2026
Phase #1 - by July 31, 2026
Phase #2 - overall winners announced by August 31, 2026
The following prizes will be awarded to the winning teams of phase #2:
Prize distribution will be communicated to team leaders after registration.
Upon registration, participants will receive an email address to reach out to the Intrinsic team for any support and help. Participants will also have access to a dedicated portal where they can find the participant toolkit and a list of frequently asked questions (FAQs).
Yes, we highly encourage you to share that you are participating in the challenge to encourage friends and colleagues to consider taking part also.
IMPORTANT: To ensure fairness for all participating teams, especially in phase #1 and phase #2, we request that you do not share videos, imagery or commentary in public forums relating to Flowstate or your use of Intrinsic tools during the challenge.
