Surface Design Solutions was named Startup of the Year at Pittsburgh's Celebration of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The award recognizes SDS's physics-informed AI platform, which grew out of over a decade of fundamental research into how surfaces behave at the nanoscale — and how that behavior drives real-world performance across industries from medical devices to industrial tooling to flooring. The platform uses patented algorithms to build predictive models from a customer's existing manufacturing data, delivering actionable surface specifications in seconds rather than the weeks required by traditional trial-and-error testing. It's a proud milestone for the team and a reflection of what becomes possible when deep science meets practical engineering.