UpLink, the innovation platform of the World Economic Forum (WEF), has launched a new global challenge to identify startups using artificial intelligence to transform the plastics value chain.
The challenge seeks innovative solutions that can improve both material design and end-of-life recovery, leveraging AI to make plastic circularity more efficient, traceable, and competitive.
Priority areas include:
- Designing materials and products that use fewer resources and offer greater recyclability.
- Developing and optimizing recycled or alternative materials.
- AI-powered identification, sorting, and traceability.
- Improving the quality of recovered materials.
- Technologies applied to chemical recycling, biological recycling, and other recovery processes.
- Solutions to transform hard-to-recycle waste into valuable raw materials.
- Connecting available secondary materials with industrial demand.
Selected companies will become part of the UpLink community and gain opportunities to engage with the World Economic Forum’s initiatives on plastics and technology, as well as with corporations, investors, policymakers, and other international stakeholders.
In addition, selected solutions will contribute to the WEF’s work on AI-driven innovations across the plastics value chain and benefit from opportunities for visibility, networking, and scaling.
The challenge is open to early-stage innovative companies with developed solutions and strong growth potential.
Application deadline: December 2, 2026, at 23:59 CET.