ACADEMIC Research GRANT PROGRAM

Unconventional Grant

Supporting researchers exploring new paradigms in efficient,
scalable, and biologically inspired AI systems.

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overview
focus areas
benefits
eligibility
timeline
presentation

Overview

Advancing the next generation of AI systems

 

We are announcing a $0.5 million Unconventional Academic Research Fund to provide $100k grants to support groundbreaking research in unconventional computing paradigms for generative AI (text, images, and video).

Unconventional AI is rethinking computing with the singular purpose of bringing biology-scale energy efficiency to AI. The human brain operates on 20 W of power, and it provides an existence proof that computers for AI can be far more efficient. We are seeking research proposals that can build this 20 W computer.

We seek highly creative, out-of-the-box proposals that can be tested in theory and simulation over the course of the one-year timeline for the grants. Traditional funding sources already support unconventional computing research that has been somewhat de-risked. We are interested in crazy ideas that are high-risk and high-reward.

Focus Areas

Research topics of interest

We seek projects that align with the following research focus areas:

  • Unconventional Circuits: Analog mixed-signal or custom digital circuits that can be trained to act as physical neural networks.
  • Unconventional Systems Architecture: Novel systems architectures for executing a neural network across heterogeneous unconventional computing cores.

  • Neural Network Architecture (dynamics): Novel neural network architectures that use the dynamics of analog systems to obtain an expressivity or parameter-efficiency advantage over neural networks that run on conventional digital hardware.

  • Neural Network Architecture (data movement): Novel neural network architectures where >99% of the computation can be realized with recurrence (weights in place) without sacrificing accuracy.

  • Theory of AI: Theory of AI, or physics of AI, or theoretical dynamical systems research that could inform or motivate the design of unconventional or dynamics-based novel neural network architectures. Investigations that enable effective use of dynamical systems for machine learning tasks.

  • 3D Integration: 3D Integration of computing and memory, including unconventional devices or packaging techniques. We prefer research that has a path to volume manufacturing in 5 years.

Benefits

What selected researchers receive

Grants will be $100,000 (USD), intended to be spent over the course of 1 year. Our goal is to award up to 5 grants, contingent upon the quality of the proposals received.

Funds will be disbursed as unrestricted gifts to the university for the academic year in which the award is provided. Funds are not intended for overhead or indirect costs.

 

eLIGIBILITY

Program requirements and evaluation

The program is open to professors at a university or degree-granting research institution in the United States. Principal Investigators (PIs) must have a strong track record in a relevant field.

The application process consists of two stages: a pre-proposal and a full proposal (by invitation only).

01

Pre-proposal

Interested applicants must submit a pre-proposal via application form that includes:

  • Project Title and Abstract (max 500 words): A concise summary of the proposed research, its unconventional nature, and its potential impact.

  • Focus Area: Identification of the primary and secondary focus areas.

  • PI and Team Information (max 200 words): Brief bios for the Principal Investigator and the postdoc(s) and/or PhD student(s) whose salaries would be supported, in part or in whole, by the grant.

  • Your most unconventional published idea (max 300 words): Describe the most creative, crazy, and “out-of-the-box” idea you have published (either as a preprint or in a journal). Include a reference to the publication(s) and detail the outcome of the idea, specifically its resulting impact.

02

Full Proposal (Invitation Only)

Following a review of the pre-proposals, a select group of applicants will be invited to submit a full proposal. This full proposal (limited to 5 pages, including figures and references; 11-point font, 1-inch margins) should present your unconventional idea, provide the rationale for its potential success, identify the top three potential failure points, and describe the impact it would have if successful.

TIMELINE

Schedule of key dates

Activity Date
Pre-proposal Submission Deadline May 15, 2026
Full Proposal Invitations Sent June 8, 2026
Full Proposal Submission Deadline June 21, 2026
Grant Award Notifications August 20, 2026

PRESENTATION

Awardee Workshop

We will host an in-person workshop and invite all awardees to send a Ph.D. student and/or postdoc to present their research and progress. Unconventional AI will cover all travel expenses for the presenters.

Apply

Apply for the Unconventional Grant

We’re looking for researchers pushing beyond the limits of today’s AI.