VANCOUVER, BC – November 2, 2026 – Variational AI is proud to announce that it has been named the winner of the Gamechanger – AI award at the BC Tech Association’s 2026 Technology Impact Awards (TIAs). The award recognizes BC companies leading the way in developing and deploying artificial intelligence. Variational AI was also a finalist for Company of the Year – Growth.
The Technology Impact Awards gala took place on October 29, 2026 at Parq Vancouver, where more than 800 founders, executives, investors and ecosystem partners gathered to celebrate 11 award winners and two new inductees to the BC Innovators Hall of Fame. The TIAs celebrate the companies and individuals who have made a significant impact on BC’s technology industry.
This award recognizes Variational AI’s work on Enki™, a generative AI platform, based on a proprietary foundation model for small molecule drug discovery. Enki is pre-trained on 873 drug targets and designs novel, synthesizable compounds that are optimized simultaneously for potency, selectivity and ADMET properties. Pharma and biotech discovery teams, including Merck/MSD, SK Life Science Labs and Rakovina Therapeutics, work with Variational AI to generate novel chemical matter and reach candidate-ready compounds faster and with fewer molecules synthesized.
“We began Variational AI seven years ago with the dream that we could reduce the ten years and two billion dollars generally required to find a new drug. If AI can drive your car, why can’t it be used to develop new medicines? We were incredibly hubristic. This is a ridiculously difficult task. But our team has put in a tremendous amount of effort and pushed this technology forward to the point where we are actually advancing healthcare and developing new medicines. Thank you for this award, and for recognizing all of the effort this team has put in,”
– said Jason Rolfe, Co-Founder and CTO of Variational AI, in his acceptance speech.
Variational AI thanks the BC Tech Association and KPMG for this recognition, and congratulates its fellow winners and finalists, including Lite-1 Bio, SenseNet, Novarc Technologies, Photonic, WELLSTAR Technologies, IKOMED Technologies, Ideon Technologies, CO280, Charitable Impact and Kardium, as well as Hall of Fame inductees Darren Entwistle and Joy Johnson.
The full list of winners is available in the BC Tech announcement.
About Variational AI
Variational AI is redefining the unit economics of drug discovery through the power of generative AI. Its platform, Enki™, generates novel, synthesizable small molecules, degraders and ADC payloads optimized for potency, selectivity and ADMET properties, enabling pharma and biotech partners to reach candidate-ready compounds faster and with fewer molecules synthesized. The founding machine learning team comes from leading AI research labs at Google, Microsoft, MIT, Caltech and D-Wave Quantum. Variational AI is headquartered in Vancouver, BC. Learn more at https://variational.ai.
Contact: info@variational.ai | +1 604-708-3307 | https://variational.ai