Developed by LTPlabs, a technology company born from the INESC TEC innovation ecosystem, the AIR platform secured 3rd place in the “Impact Delivered” category of the EARTO Innovation Awards 2026 — the first technology from the Institute to reach the podium in this category and the fourth consecutive year of INESC TEC among the award winners.
The AIR platform, an Artificial Intelligence platform developed by LTPlabs, a spin-off of INESC TEC, was recognised with 3rd place in the “Impact Delivered” category of the EARTO Innovation Awards 2026, the most important European awards granted to research and technology organisations (RTOs).
The distinction marks an unprecedented achievement: AIR is the first technology developed by INESC TEC to reach the podium in the “Impact Delivered” category, reserved for innovations that have already demonstrated real, measurable results in the market. It is also the fourth consecutive year in which a technology from the Institute has featured on the podium of the EARTO Innovation Awards, following distinctions obtained by MyNPK (2023), iLoF (2024), and KEPsoft (2025), all in the “Impact Expected” category.
The AIR platform was created to address a challenge faced by organisations across different sectors: transforming large volumes of data into concrete, swift decisions with operational impact. Built on Artificial Intelligence, the solution enables organisations to plan, size, and manage their logistics operations quickly and in a way tailored to their needs. In practice, it allows decision-makers to extract tangible value from AI at scale, dramatically shortening the time between analysis and decision.
The results are already significant. The platform has been applied to more than 190 projects for over 30 companies across more than 20 countries, resulting in cost reductions of up to 40% and annual savings of several million euros.
The retail sector demonstrates its reach well through a sustainability-focused project. AIR enabled optimising the management of over one million products nearing their expiry date, avoiding the waste of 810 tonnes of food and generating more than 3.5 million euros per year in efficiency gains and reduced stock depreciation.
“This award recognises an approach to Artificial Intelligence centred on execution and impact. With AIR, we seek to ensure that organisations can implement cutting-edge AI solutions quickly, robustly, and scalably, reducing the distance between data analysis and decision-making,” explains Teresa Bianchi de Aguiar, Partner at LTPlabs.
Beyond economic returns, AIR has demonstrated a meaningful contribution to organisations’ sustainability goals by enabling more efficient decision-making in resource management, supply chains, and industrial operations across sectors as diverse as retail, logistics, energy, and healthcare.
“AIR and LTPlabs, as a spin-off of INESC TEC, are a clear example of how knowledge generated within the scientific system is converted into real, international impact. This distinction from EARTO reinforces INESC TEC’s commitment to building solid bridges between research and society, and is a strong motivation to multiply the success stories that recognise the work of our researchers,” says Daniel Vasconcelos, head of INESC TEC’s Technology Transfer Office.
Established in 2009, the EARTO Innovation Awards annually recognise the innovations with the greatest societal impact developed by leading European research and technology organisations, across two categories: “Impact Delivered”, for solutions already on the market, and “Impact Expected”, for innovations with high potential yet to be commercialised. In the 2026 edition, INESC TEC shared the podium in the “Impact Delivered” category with Slovenia’s Jožef Stefan Institute (JSI), the winner, and Luxembourg’s LIST, in second place.
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