Manchester Prize

The Manchester Prize, an initiative of the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT),). willEstablished awardin £12023, millionthe everyPrize yearrepresents fora 10decade-long yearscommitment toby agovernment teamto ofsupport innovatorscutting withedge theinnovations mostwhich cutting-edgeuse AI solution for the public good.

Thegood firstand Manchestertackle Prize,some runningof fromsociety’s Decemberbiggest 2023shared tochallenges.

Manchester MarchPrize: 2025,round is2

The seekingsecond innovationManchester fromPrize UK-ledwill teamsfocus withon breakthroughAI ideas for overcomingClean challengesEnergy in the fields of energy, environment and infrastructure.Systems.

Up to 10 finalist teams will initially receive receive:

• £100,000 each, each
• a generous package of non-financial support,support
• £60,000 andin access to free compute credit to develop their innovation. Oneinnovations

One finalist team will win the £1 million grand prize in early 2025.2026.

Manchester

Round Prize:2: how to enter

Round One

The

Round 2: the challenge statement

The firstsecond Manchester Prize will be awarded to the most innovative and impactful AI solution whichenabling demonstratesthe socialUK benefitto byaccelerate overcomingprogress challengestowards ina thenet fieldszero ofenergy energy, environment and infrastructuresystem.

Solutions couldshould include:demonstrate use of AI that:

• reducingaccelerates the UK’s adoption of clean energy coststechnologies forat consumersscale;
• enable byefficient usingor AIlow-cost tooperations modelof householdclean energy usesystems;
• and/or andsignificantly identifyreduce targetedenergy interventions,demand suchor asoptimise retrofittingenergy and replacementusage.
• supporting

The emergencywinning servicesolution responsewill bydemonstrate bringingnot togetheronly atechnical rangeinnovation ofbut spatialalso dataan aboutevidenced the road map to near-term (2030) adoption and builtscale.

Solutions environmentcould include:

• predicting supply and demand to improvesupport lastsmart mileload routingmanagement in the grid, allowing for better integration of renewables while minimising transmission constraints
• improvingoptimising theenergy responseconsumption toin extremecommercial weatherspaces, conditionsfor byexample, usingthrough AIsemi-autonomous andcontrol earthof observation data tocentres
• maximising predictrenewable areasenergy vulnerablecapture toand flooding,storage, orby toleveraging supportAI betterto real-timediscover spatialnew datamaterials ofand eventsdesign suchsuperior assolar wildfirespanels and flashwind floodsturbines
• reducingensuring disruptiona tostable publicand servicesresilient throughenergy predictivesupply, modellingand ofeasing infrastructuregrid resilience,stress, withby automatedusing schedulingAI ofto maintenance,optimise suchand ascoordinate deployinglocal teamsenergy toassets, fixsuch potholesas orheat otherpumps trafficand obstructionsbatteries
• enhancingaccelerating foodenergy securityinfrastructure byprojects usingwhile earthminimising observationenvironmental and soilsocietal dataimpact tothrough monitorAI andsolutions improvethat farmingsupport productivityfeasibility andstudies cropor yieldsite plan development
• improvingempowering efficiencypeople andin reducingtheir resourceenergy consumptiontransition inwith manufacturingsolutions bythat usingprovide AI-powered toinsights, optimiseand ortailored automateinterventions energy-intensiveand processessupport

We encourage solutions that demonstrate advances in technical capabilities such as generalisation, as:

• generalisation
• uncertainty quantification, interpretability, quantification
• interpretability
• data-efficient
• AI and
• physics-based AI.

Winners will be judged according to the criteria of innovation, impact, long-term viability, feasibility, and safety ethics, and ethics.sustainability.

Round one

The first Manchester Prize, that runs from December 2023 to March 2025, sought innovation from UK-led teams with breakthrough ideas for overcoming challenges in the fields of energy, environment and infrastructure.

Round one finalists were announced on 21 May 2024, and the £1 million winner will be announced in April 2025.