Alumnus William Moy wins prestigious Activate fellowship
Alumnus and postdoctoral research associate William Moy is one of 62 fellows to be awarded the prestigious Activate Fellowship in 2024. The goal of the fellowship is to support scientists and engineers to develop as founders who can “reinvent the world by bringing their research to market.” Moy was chosen from a highly competitive field of over 1000 applicants for the two-year fellowship. Fellows are provided with funding, technical assistance, and support from investors, commercial partners, and fellow entrepreneurs to shape their scientific breakthroughs into transformative and impactful businesses.
Moy is the co-founder and chief technology officer of COBI (co-founded with McKnight Presidential Endowed Chair Chris Kim who is the chief executive officer, and Tarik Bolat who is the executive chairman), a startup established in March 2024. COBI has sprung from his doctoral research, completed under the guidance of Kim, in which he focused on developing coupled oscillator circuits that are used for solving optimization problems. (Moy went on to work as a postdoctoral researcher in Kim’s VLSI research laboratory at the University of Minnesota.)
COBI draws on the best of classical and quantum computing to solve complex and hard-to-solve problems of large-scale optimization that have challenged state-of-the-art CMOS-based computers. Optimization problems span the spectrum of human endeavors from logistics to finance to telecommunications. COBI has taken on a novel approach to solve such problems: by using Coupled Oscillator Based Intelligent computers that are based on physics-based computing, native all-to-all connectivity, and advanced CMOS technology, it can provide exponential speedup over classical and quantum solvers. The chips are built using existing integrated circuit technology, and can solve hard optimization problems on the cloud or in an edge device, with no cooling or or special control circuitry required. The chips also support standard interfaces like USB and PCIe. COBI’s goal is to harness current semiconductor technologies to provide cost and energy-efficient hardware to solve optimization problems.
Addressing the significance of the fellowship for Moy as well as COBI, Kim says, “The Activate fellowship immediately puts Will and COBI on the radar of investors, advisors, and potential customers. Transforming a novel academic concept into a viable deep tech business has been the most challenging endeavor of our careers. However, we are grateful for the overwhelming support provided by the Activate fellowship, the National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research program, and other entrepreneur programs.”
The Activate fellowship will support Moy with a living stipend, health insurance, travel allowance, and other benefits including mentoring, access to research tools, mentorship, and entrepreneurial education. Established in 2015, Activate Global, Inc. is a non-profit organization with partnerships with U.S.-based research institutions and funders including the National Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). To date, the organization has supported 249 Fellows who have gone on to set up 196 companies.