Designed to help communities respond faster and smarter during a global crisis, this prize challenged teams to develop AI systems capable of forecasting COVID-19 surges and recommending targeted interventions, bringing data-driven decision-making to the front lines of the pandemic.
Impact
17 countries engaged in Phase 2 of the competition
1.99M+ hours of R&D contributed by competing teams
921M+ global media impressions generating $1.7M in earned value
Winner
Valencia IA4COVID
Partnered with the Valencian government to forecast epidemiological trends, predict COVID-19 surges and declines, and support targeted, region-specific interventions.
JSI vs COVID
Modeled COVID-19 spread with high accuracy to help local authorities plan and implement effective response measures that minimized disruption while protecting public health.
VALENCIA IA4COVID
JSI vs COVID
Winning Teams
Pandemic Response Challenge
Sponsors
Sponsors fund the prize journey from bold idea to breakthrough—shaping each competition, supporting global teams, and accelerating solutions that scale. Their backing powers impact that lasts well beyond the prize.
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Partners
Partners play a hands-on role in our prizes—co-designing competitions, supporting operations, and helping scale solutions with their expertise, resources, and global reach.
Barrier
COVID-19 exposed how unprepared the world was to make fast, data-driven decisions during a global health crisis. Governments lacked tools to forecast outbreaks and guide reopening strategies—putting lives, economies, and systems at risk.
Breakthrough
The winning breakthrough technology used AI to forecast infection rates and recommend localized interventions in real time—empowering communities to reopen safely while balancing public health and economic recovery through predictive modeling.
About the Prize
Launched in late 2020 during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the $500K XPRIZE Pandemic Response Challenge called on global teams to build AI-driven systems that could help decision-makers minimize harm while navigating reopening efforts.
Developed in partnership with Cognizant, the competition had two key goals: predict future case counts using machine learning, and recommend targeted public health intervention plans (IPs) that could be implemented at the regional level. Teams received real-time case data, policy updates from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker, and access to Cognizant’s Evolutionary AI platform as a modeling baseline.
Winning solutions demonstrated that it was possible to create region-specific pandemic forecasts with actionable insights. Teams not only built models that could predict future outbreaks—they also provided tailored intervention plans designed to reduce infection rates while supporting economic continuity.
Valencia IA4COVID worked directly with the Valencian government to predict a major surge and help local officials implement an effective response. JSI vs COVID delivered similarly high-accuracy forecasts that informed public health leadership.
The challenge showed how fast-deployed, open innovation can fill critical gaps in crisis response—and help the world adapt faster to future pandemics.
Prize Schedule
The prize launched in November 2020. Phase 1 focused on forecasting case counts; Phase 2 on generating intervention plans. Finalists were announced in January 2021. Valencia IA4COVID and JSI vs COVID were named co-winners in February 2021.
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