A Spanish start-up that makes artificial intelligence software for waste-sorting robots won Nvidia's Early Stage Challenge competition this week. The award comes with a relatively small $100,000 check, but it has helped identify and launch the trajectories of multiple successful AI and computer graphics companies in recent years, including Oculus.

Sadako, this year's winner, was founded in Barcelona in 2012 and writes AI programs for robots that perform "dirty jobs," like sorting garbage at waste treatment facilities. The company's YouTube video (below) demonstrates how its machine-learning software allows cameras to scan a conveyer belt of mixed garbage and detect small plastic water bottles for a robot to remove and recycle.

The detection technology is based on multi-layer neural networks, otherwise known as machine learning, and requires a lot of expensive computing power, so it uses a cloud solution from Softlayer and Nvidia GPUs.

The robots themselves, nicknamed Wall-B, cost $30,000 each, according to CEO Eugenio Garnica. But that doesn't include the cost of developing the AI software, which boosts the final amount to around $110,000. Garnica said his main challenge is bringing the cost down enough so it makes sense for municipal waste treatment plants to invest in the technology.

Optical sorting has been used in waste plants before, but relies on rudimentary image processors and human intervention. Using AI and machine learning can streamline the process, though it has never been commercially viable.

"Deep learning in the waste stream is difficult," Garnica said. "Many people told us it was impossible."

But there is a lot of potential, since much of what people throw away—plastic, steel, bricks, and the like—is valuable if it can be salvaged cheaply. And of course there are environmental benefits, which Garnica said was the primary reason he started his company. The company takes its name from Sadako Sasaki, a Japanese girl who was killed by the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

Garnica competed against 11 other entrepreneurs in the final round of the Early Stage Challenge at Nvidia's GPU Technology Conference. To qualify for the competition, companies had to be in the seed funding stage and have raised no more than $1 million.

Last year's winner was Artomatix, which markets AI technology that renders video game art by duplicating already-created elements (so game developers can more easily turn one zombie into an entire army, for example). CEO Eric Risser said that the $100,000 investment was helpful for paying his team's salary and other start-up costs, but it was also inspirational enough that he framed the giant check and mounted it on his office wall.

Oculus, which won the competition in 2013, makes the Oculus Rift VR headset and was acquired by Facebook for $2 billion. Gaming physics simulation maker NaturalMotion, which won in 2010, was acquired by Zynga last year for $527 million.

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