XPRIZE Water Scarcity

XPRIZE Water Scarcity is a multi-year global incentive competition to develop affordable, accessible, and scalable seawater desalination solutions. It runs two tracks: Track A for system-level innovations that can produce at least 1 m³/day of potable water and Track B for novel materials and methods for saltwater separation validated at lab scale. Qualified Teams progress to field testing and validation and compete for milestone awards and multimillion-dollar grand prizes. The competition is sponsored by The Mohamed bin Zayed Water Initiative and administered by XPRIZE.

Access to milestone funding and multimillion-dollar grand prizes, field testing and validation opportunities, and support for teams advancing through competition stages.

Teams worldwide may participate; qualified teams include academic labs, deep‑tech startups, and cross-disciplinary consortiums. Pre-registered teams came from 86 countries and 143 Qualified Teams represent 29 countries.

Teams register via the XPRIZE team portal and progress through evaluation to become Qualified Teams, then proceed to field testing, semifinalist selection, and final judging.