Swiss AI Enters a New Era: inait SA and the Rise of Digital Brains

In March 2025, Microsoft announced a strategic partnership with a little-known Swiss AI startup. The move did not target another LLM vendor or cloud-native automation tool. Instead, it focused on something radically different: a digital brain. Lausanne-based inait is building biologically inspired software systems that simulate the brain’s reasoning capabilities. Just like biological organisms, they are machines that learn, adapt, and reason.

The AI Paradigm Shift Starts in Switzerland

From Digital Brains to Algorithms: What inait SA Actually Does

These are computational systems designed for causal learning, adapting continuously based on real-world experience, in ever-changing virtual or real-world environments, and ultimately for reasoning independently. Unlike large language models, which require enormous datasets and energy to train, inait’s digital brain AI can learn incrementally, more like biological brains do, whatever their size.

inait’s models use the architecture of digital brains, i.e. the architecture of real brains, and not some human-engineered simplified form of it. On this basis, inait has developed its own computational models that do not rely on statistical correlations. Instead, they apply learned rules of causality: how specific actions lead to specific consequences and then use this learning framework to make decisions in new, unfamiliar and changing environments. This allows them to generalize, plan, and act far beyond the capabilities of most conventional AI. The key components are:

• a digital brain with a neural network architecture as given by an actual biological brain;
• a proprietary neural code that allows them to operate these digital brains and a proprietary learning algorithm enabling causal learning and structured decision-making.

Moreover, inait encapsulates its pioneering digital brain technology within layers of conventional AI (LLMs or CNNs) to insert data and/or interface with users, to yield what inait calls inait Adaptive Machines (iAMs). These machines blend retrospective intelligence with proactive adaptability, continuously learning “on the factory floor” without energy-intensive data refreshes or retraining. iAMs don’t merely react, they self-learn the set of cognitive skills required to interact intelligently in any environment, which is perfect for adaptive intelligence in a number of industry verticals.

After having built a number of technology performance proof points, notably in forecasting and virtual physics gyms to solve a wide range of physics tasks, inait’s initial industry applications are now focused on two domains:

In fintech and financial services, inait’s AI solutions boost autonomous trading strategies, adaptive risk modelling and portfolio optimization. This will now, in collaboration with Microsoft, be rolled out to investment banks, and also be extended to support additional high-impact finance industry use cases more generally and beyond trading applications.

In robotics and industrial automation, the focus is on adaptive agents, i.e. machines that learn from their environment, refine their behaviour in motion and can adapt to changing circumstances as they often occur in manufacturing environments. Currently trained for a selected number of high impact use cases in sophisticated virtual environments, this is expected to go to factory floor environments in the near future.

In a next phase, inait plans to extend its applications to gaming (NPCs for example), virtual reality, healthcare, autonomous vehicles and many more verticals.

Development Stage and Funding Trajectory

inait SA is no longer in the theoretical or exploratory R&D phase. It has chosen to operate under the radar for almost six years, so it can, when ready, communicate based on results and performance, and not mere ideas and concepts. inait now stands on solid scientific and technological foundations and is actively transitioning into its commercial scaling phase. Its AI solutions are now deployable software modules, currently being integrated into enterprise pipelines through its strategic partnership with Microsoft.

“We see Microsoft as our ideal partner, for go-to-market and more, a trusted brand with a strong culture, with deep industry access and a global reach, as well as a great ecosystem that includes their own AI and that of their partner companies. With our digital brain AI we bring something unique to them and can focus on the most impactful industry use cases and our continuous AI innovation.”
– Richard Frey, CEO

inait employs over 30 people, mainly based in Lausanne, including hand-selected former researchers of EPFL and the Blue Brain Project that built the original digital brain, as well as technologists from global AI firms. These are not generalists, but domain experts such as neuroscientists, mathematicians, systems engineers and data scientists, working hand-in-hand from core research to industry applications. The result is a unique AI platform that sits at the intersection of neuroscience and machine intelligence: a software-based digital brain AI that can make decisions and reason through complex and changing environments.

Since inception, inait has raised some CHF 45 million across two Seed rounds, supported entirely by private investors. It is now raising a substantial Series A round, to scale resources and to fund its commercial rollout across fintech and robotics, expand its engineering and go-to-market teams, and extend its AI platform into additional industry verticals. The company’s unique assets, i.e. access to the world’s most accurate digital brains and inait’s proprietary IP, notably its neural code and learning algorithm to operate such digital brains, give the company a strong and defensible position in a market crowded with statistical AI clones. For investors looking for the next frontier in Swiss artificial intelligence, inait offers something rare: world-class science and technology, clearly differentiated and proven in initial industry solutions, and a clear path to monetisation.

Henry Markram: The Visionary Behind the Brain

Markram’s career trajectory was shaped by a singular mission: to open the black box of the brain and rebuild it as a functioning system. His research focused on how neurons form networks, how synapses adapt in real time, and how memories are encoded through constantly shifting patterns rather than fixed data points. These insights drove the Blue Brain Project to rebuild the mammalalian brain in digital format (what most experts considered impossible at the time and is now done) and also form the intellectual foundation of inait’s digital brain AI models.

Anticipating that digital brains would be an ideal biological architecture to develop a novel kind of AI, Markram founded inait, with the idea to use these digital brains for AI. inait is partnering with the Open Brain Institute and uses these digital brains for the development of its innovative AI, so that they can learn to solve real-world challenges.

“What we’re doing at inait is only possible because we can build on Henry’s whole life of researching the brain, including a formula on how to build digital brains that he and his Blue Brain team developed over the last two decades. On this strong scientific foundation, we have built our unique inait AI, as a software today and ultimately to be embedded into hardware. It is literally decades of foundational science being brought to commercial life.”
– Richard Frey, CEO

The Blue Brain Project: A National Infrastructure for Intelligence

These simulations weren’t theoretical. They were computational reconstructions based on hard biological data, captured through years of imaging, recording, and statistical modeling. By the time the project concluded in 2024, its outputs included over 18 million lines of code, mapping cell types, network topologies, and synaptic functions.

In 2024, the Blue Brain Project transitioned into the Open Brain Institute (OBI), a nonprofit dedicated to open science and continued simulation research. inait SA partners with the OBI to apply these digital brain models, marking the first time this national infrastructure has been deployed for enterprise and industrial applications.

Microsoft Partnership: Validation and Global Scale

In March 2025, Microsoft announced a strategic partnership with inait SA. Microsoft is integrating inait’s digital brain AI into its Azure AI platform, making it available for enterprise customers in financial services, manufacturing and robotics in a first phase. For inait, the collaboration validates both its technology and its business model. For Microsoft, it extends its AI portfolio into a novel category of AI, cognitive AI or how inait calls it “adaptive AI”, an area where traditional LLMs fall short.

“Their neuroscience-inspired technology is truly innovative, and we are pleased to collaborate with them to bring these advancements to market.”
– Catrin Hinkel, CEO Microsoft Switzerland

The partnership includes joint research, joint product development, co-selling arrangements, and cloud deployment on Azure. Financial sector applications include algorithmic trading systems that adapt in real time to market changes, and advisory engines that personalize portfolio strategies through behavioral modeling. In manufacturing and robotics, the partnership is enabling machines that can adapt to changing environments without being explicitly programmed on large data lakes.

The Swiss AI Ecosystem

Switzerland has quietly become one of the most advanced AI ecosystems in the world. Anchored by ETH Zurich and EPFL, it hosts leading global research institutions, major AI research labs from Big Tech, and a government that actively supports innovation. Zurich ranks #2 in Europe for AI talent density, and Switzerland has been the #1 country in the Global Innovation Index for 13 years running.

What’s really exciting about this is that it’s no longer purely academic: the Swiss model blends high-level research with a culture of spin-offs and applied ventures. Notable AI startups include:

• Unique AI (AI for finances)
• LatticeFlow (AI robustness and explainability)
• Synthara (neuromorphic chip design)
• Cradle (AI for protein structure and drug design)

The Swiss government plays a catalytic role. Initiatives like Innosuisse grants, the Alps supercomputer, and the Swiss AI Initiative offer support for both early research and applied development. Zurich is particularly competitive here, having recently passed a resolution which will create an AI Sandbox, infuse an extra CHF 2.9 million in capital for startups, and provide AI enablement services for SMEs. The country as a whole is also developing a framework for autonomous driving.

For international investors, the key takeaway is this: Switzerland doesn’t produce volume: it produces depth. Its AI startups may be fewer in number, but they are often IP-rich, scientifically grounded, and engineered for global scalability.

Why Swiss AI Is a Prime Target for Investment

For AI investors, Switzerland pairs a buzzing ecosystem with a dense concentration of top‑tier talent and global tech leaders. Add generous local incentives, world‑class technical universities, iron‑clad data‑privacy laws, and rock‑solid political stability, and the country stands out as a prime investment ground. Rising stars such as inait SA and Unique AI already deliver alpha‑grade deal flow. On top of that, Switzerland offers:

• Non‑dilutive public R&D grants and targeted tax breaks
• A high concentration of university spin‑offs generating defensible IP
• Transparent, predictable regulation and uncompromising IP protection

Unlike Berlin or Paris, where growth is often top-down and momentum-driven, the Swiss model scales bottom-up: deep science, early validation, and efficient capital deployment. This makes it particularly attractive for international investors seeking strategic long-term bets with global applicability.

With increasing exit potential, more M&A activity, and a growing number of startups entering later-stage funding rounds, Switzerland is evolving from being primarily a research hub. It’s an emerging AI scale-up ecosystem, and inait SA is a bellwether of what’s to come.