A contest with a first prize of $50,000 launched on January 7, 2026. It is the second part of the Stanford RNA 3D Folding challenge and has already 102 teams actively participating.

Participants in this contest, in which the challenge is to predict the 3D structure of RNA molecules using their sequences, could achieve a breakthrough in molecular biology. Better RNA structure prediction could unlock new treatments, accelerate research, and deepen understanding of how life works. The timeline is designed to surface new breakthroughs ahead of the 17th Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction (CASP17) in April 2025.

Building on the success of the first competition, which marked a major milestone, with fully automated models matching human experts for the first time, this second iteration introduces even more complex targets - including those without structural templates, to push the boundaries of molecular modeling.

Earlier this week we posted The Thinking Game a report about a video documenting Deep Minds' breakthrough in protein folding using AlphaFold. Predicting RNA 3D structure is widely considered a more difficult and "messier" problem than protein folding, even though RNA molecules only use 4 building blocks (A, C, G, U) compared to the 20 amino acids found in proteins.

This two-part competition, made possible through a worldwide collaborative effort including the organizers, Przemek Porebski, Rhiju Das, Walter Reade, and Ashley Oldacre, together with experimental RNA structural biologists, the AI at HHMI initiative of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Stanford University School of Medicine, encourages the keenest minds of the Kaggle Community to bring fresh approaches to the problem.

As of early 2026, Kaggle has grown into a massive community with over 28 million to 30 million registered members. To join this competition, for free, you need to join Kaggle, which Google, who owns it, keeps free as it serves as a central hub for AI research and recruitment. Members get free access to GPUs and TPUs (specialized AI hardware) directly in your browser. Currently, users usually get around 30 hours of GPU time per week and also benefit from access to Kaggle Learn courses (Python, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, etc.) which are free and offer certificates upon completion. 

The contest continues until March 25, 2026 and the final date to sign up and for teams to merge is March 18. While entry to the competition is free there are prizes on offer:

1st Place - $ 50,000
2nd Place - $ 15,000
3rd Place - $ 10,000

Equally importantly is recognition for contributing to ground-breaking research. The Top performing participants on the Private Leaderboard rankings will be invited to contribute their code and model descriptions to a scientific paper summarizing the competition's scientific outcome. A pre-print of the paper from the first part, with some 70 authors, is now availalbe on bioRxiv. 

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