IBM, Volvo Cars and EcoFlow recognised in Fast Company Innovation Design Awards

Fast Company 2023 Innovation Design Awards honour work and spaces across the design spectrum that push their respective fields forward. Products, buildings and ideas are judged on innovation, originality, scalability, sustainability, the potential to transform industries and solve humanity’s most pressing needs.

Winner, Large Business

Finalist, Best Design North America

IBM, Quantum System Two

Designed in collaboration with AKQA’s industrial design studio Map Project Office and AKQA’s architecture practice Universal Design Studio, IBM’s System Two has been recognised as the Most Innovative Design for 2023 by Fast Company in the Large Business category. It has also been named as a Finalist for Best Design in North America.

Quantum System Two is the second generation of IBM’s quantum computer with Map Project Office and Universal Design Studio also working on IBM’s Quantum System One. Quantum System Two is designed for the future of computing, to be modular and flexible, combining multiple processors into a single system with communication links for the quantum-centric supercomputer. Housed in an iconic architecture, System Two illustrates the direction IBM is moving into the quantum age.

Finalist, Best Automotive Design

Volvo Cars, EX90

Vehicles that make the driving experience safer and more sustainable are recognised in the Best Automotive Design category. The Volvo EX90 is a physical manifestation of Volvo Cars’ Safety in Mind vision, displaying new technologies designed to help protect people on the road.

Together Volvo Cars and AKQA created the strategy behind the new vision, defining the role that feeling safe plays in all our lives. The vision launched with a keynote set in a world inspired by Volvo Cars’ lidar, a key sensing technology that sees beyond the human range. Premiering on YouTube, The Keynote is followed over eight weeks with a series of innovation films that deep dive into each key technology.

Honourable Mention, Experimental

EcoFlow, The EcoFlow House

The Experimental category recognises concepts and designs that push beyond the expectation of what’s possible to excite the imagination. Like countless homes and properties, a holiday lodge in the remote mountain area called Yokoyama, located in Ina City in Nagano prefecture, was abandoned after its power was cut 15 years ago. Equipped with EcoFlow’s sustainable power system, EcoFlow and AKQA renovated and reopened the lodge as The EcoFlow House, available to anyone who wants to experience the freedom of living off the grid.

Awareness of the initiative was spread with a short film and by inviting celebrity ambassadors, influencers and advocates of clean energy, to stay at the house to review and co-create social content.