ETH Zurich
ETH Zurich is a Swiss federal technical university in Zurich, conducting multi-disciplinary research and education across science, engineering, technology, mathematics, and management, and serving as a leading deeptech venture creation engine through spin-offs and industry partnerships.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded1855
- HeadquartersZürich, Switzerland
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B and B2C
- OfferingServices
What ETH Zurich does
ETH Zurich (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich), founded in 1855 and headquartered at Rämistrasse 101 in Zurich, Switzerland, is a Swiss federal technical university operating across 16 departments covering architecture, engineering, natural sciences, mathematics, computer science, management, and social sciences. It serves approximately 13,000 employees, over 24,000 students, and a global community of researchers, industry partners, and alumni, and is governed by the ETH Board under Swiss federal oversight. The institution is also a deeptech venture creation engine, having produced 192 alumni-founded deeptech start-ups since 2020 and a record 46 new ETH Ventures in 2025 that raised CHF 540 million across 41 financing rounds.
The university's core output is multi-disciplinary research, with notable technology platforms including quantum computing systems achieving 99.1% precision on 17,000 qubit pairs, fault-tolerant quantum computing via lattice surgery, the SCION internet routing architecture, single-atom catalysts for CO2-to-methanol conversion, protein-based CO2 capture beads outperforming direct air capture by 10 to 50 percent, the ANYmal Mars-analogue quadruped robot, 42.3 tesla palm-sized superconducting magnets, and the bidirectional Fourier pixel for combined display and camera functionality. AI capabilities include Apertus, Switzerland's first large-scale fully open multilingual LLM co-developed with EPFL and deployed on sovereign infrastructure, the MathTutorBench benchmark and TutorRL model, and ongoing AI-quantum algorithm development with IBM.
ETH Zurich's revenue model is a hybrid of public funding and commercial activity: tuition fees (CHF 2,190 per semester for foreign students as of 2025), federal government appropriations, competitive research grants including EUR 31.5 million across 12 ERC Advanced Grants, industry-funded collaborative research (IBM, NVIDIA, Stanford, Schroders, Zurich Insurance, Sika, Los Alamos), and technology transfer through spin-offs and start-ups. Customer segments span domestic and international students, research funders (European Research Council, Swiss National Science Foundation), industry partners seeking research collaboration, and spin-off companies, with a horizontal segmentation approach across use cases rather than a single vertical focus.
ETH Zurich firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- ETH Zurich
- Legal name
- Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich
- Website
- https://ethz.ch
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 1855
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- ETH Zurich is a Swiss federal technical university in Zurich, conducting multi-disciplinary research and education across science, engineering, technology, mathematics, and management, and serving as a leading deeptech venture creation engine through spin-offs and industry partnerships.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
ETH Zurich industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Higher Education and Research
- NAICS
- Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools (6113), Engineering Services (541330), Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services (54), Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services (5416), Other Scientific and Technical Consulting Services (54169)
- SIC
- Services-Engineering Services (8711), Services-Commercial Physical & Biological Research (8731), Services-Engineering, Accounting, Research, Management (8700), Services-Testing Laboratories (8734)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Engineering & Technology Institutes (Comprehensive) (EDAHAEAA)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- STEM-Focused Technical Universities (EDAHAEAD), Technical Universities with Computing, Data & AI Focus (EDAHAEAK), STEM-Focused Research Universities (Engineering & Applied Sciences) (EDAHABAB), Institutes of Technology (IoT / Technical Universities) (EDAHAEAC), Technical Universities with Architecture, Built Environment & Design Engineering (EDAHAEAJ), Biomedical Sciences & Medical Research Institutes (University-Based) (EDAHAGAI), Public Research Universities with National Laboratories/Big Science Facilities (EDAHAAAJ)
Keywords
Where ETH Zurich is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Zürich
- HQ country
- Switzerland
- HQ region
- Europe
Offices14 records
Markets served
ETH Zurich business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B and B2C
- Offering type
- Services
- Cost components
- Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Others
Revenue model
- Tuition Fees: Tuition fees from students - ETH Zurich and EPFL tripled tuition fees for foreign students to CHF 2,190 per semester in 2025
- Federal Government Funding: Government funding from Swiss federal government - budget deficits being addressed through planned federal funding cuts
- Technology Transfer and Spin-offs: Revenue from spin-off companies and technology licensing; 46 new ventures raised CHF 540 million across 41 financing rounds in 2025
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Annual | Foreign student tuition |
| Subscription | Annual | Domestic student tuition |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels5 records
Marketing channels7 records
ETH Zurich product offering
Product offeringCore offering
ETH Zurich (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich) is a Swiss Federal Institute of Technology that delivers undergraduate and graduate degree programs across 16 departments, conducts multi-disciplinary scientific research in fields ranging from quantum physics and computer science to biology and environmental science, and operates an active technology-transfer and spin-off creation program that supports venture formation from research outputs. It also offers doctoral and postdoctoral research positions, industry-sponsored contract research, and access to specialized research facilities.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- Fire-resistant building panels (research output): Fire-resistant construction panels developed by ETH Zurich researchers using sawdust, struvite, and watermelon seed enzyme
- Apertus AI
- AGENTS.md
Products and services
- ETH Zürich Degree Programs
- Doctoral and Postdoctoral Research Positions
- Industry Collaboration and Contract Research
- ETH Spin-off and Venture Creation Support (ETH Ventures)
- BedrettoLab Underground Research Facility
- Apertus Open-Source Multilingual LLM
Companies that use ETH Zurich
Customer profileNamed customers6 records
Segments4 records
Ideal customer profiles4 records
ETH Zurich technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
AI capability9 records
Feature9 records
ETH Zurich partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
15 partnerships are on record, tiered strategic, minor and core.
- Schroders CapitalstrategicIndustry-first research project on hurricane risk modeling for the ILS sector, using high-resolution climate simulations and machine learning to develop forward-looking risk assessments.
- Climate WordsminorCollaboration on Rosenberg Youth Manifesto for Action developed at World Economic Forum, transforming student questions into concrete commitments across education, industry and governance.
- Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME)minorFirst Swiss-Hungarian Innovation Forum to strengthen innovation, business, and scientific cooperation between Switzerland and Hungary.
- NVIDIAstrategicETH Zurich adopting NVIDIA Isaac GR00T Reference Humanoid Robot platform for academic robotics research combining Unitree H2 Plus hardware with NVIDIA's software stack.
- IBMcore10-year collaboration to develop advanced algorithms at the intersection of AI and quantum computing. Focus areas include optimization and combinatorial problems, differential equations and dynamical systems, linear algebra and Hamiltonian simulations, and complex system modeling. IBM is funding professorship positions and research projects at ETH Zurich.
- EPFLcoreJoint development of Apertus model - Switzerland's first large-scale, fully open, multilingual LLM developed with the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre. Deployment on AWS Europe (Zurich) Region for sovereign AI inference.
- Stanford UniversitycorePartnership through Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI with Swiss National AI Institute (ETH Zurich and EPFL) to develop open-source AI models prioritizing societal values over commercial interests.
- Swiss National Supercomputing CentrecoreCollaboration on Apertus LLM development and high-performance computing projects including ODISSEE for exabyte-scale scientific data processing.
- University of ViennaminorJoint research on Earth's rotation slowdown due to climate change, finding day length increased by 1.33 milliseconds per century.
- SikastrategicFunding contribution to Living Lab HIL project for sustainable construction practices, supporting planning of refurbishment and expansion of academic building with focus on carbon reduction, digitalisation, and circular economy solutions.
- Los Alamos National LaboratorystrategicPartnership for testing fibre-optic Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) technology for lunar seismic imaging using vibrations from moonquakes and meteorites.
- Swiss Center for Semiconductor Research (SCSR)strategicCollaborative research initiative modeled after CERN to establish Switzerland as pan-European hub for semiconductor chip design, advanced materials, and novel architectures.
- Zurich InsurancestrategicCollaboration on Zurich AI Lab for transforming insurance delivery through artificial intelligence research.
- Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AIcoreFramework for long-term collaboration in AI research and education, including joint workshops, researcher exchanges, and shared compute initiatives to develop open-source, open-data multimodal foundation models.
- Global Impact Coalition (BASF, Clariant, Covestro, LyondellBasell, SUEZ)strategicResearch project on converting waste into chemicals via sustainable routes, examining technical challenges and integrating new feedstocks into existing chemical value chains.
Scale indicators10 records
Recent moves8 records
Expansion highlights6 records
ETH Zurich competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne): Switzerland's other federal institute of technology, jointly responsible for the Apertus LLM and the USD 24.2B combined enterprise value. EPFL is the closest peer in scope, governance, funding model, and spin-off pipeline, and is a direct collaborator rather than competitor.
- MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology): Global benchmark for comprehensive STEM research universities with deep industry partnerships and a major spin-off ecosystem. Comparable in scale, research output, technology transfer model, and global standing across engineering, computing, and applied sciences.
- Stanford University: Silicon Valley's anchor research university and a direct partner through the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI. Comparable as a top-tier research institution driving deeptech spin-off creation, industry collaboration, and AI/quantum research at global scale.
- Caltech (California Institute of Technology): Smaller, elite STEM-focused research university with strong physics, engineering, and space research programs. Comparable in research intensity, Nobel-level output, and concentration on fundamental science and engineering disciplines.
- Imperial College London: UK's leading STEM-focused university with comparable research breadth across engineering, science, medicine, and business. Strong spin-off pipeline and industry partnerships make it the closest European peer to ETH outside Switzerland.
- Technical University of Munich (TUM): Germany's leading technical university with comparable engineering, AI, and quantum research portfolio. Operates a similar industry partnership and spin-off model within the European deeptech ecosystem and competes for talent and research funding.
- University of Cambridge: Top global research university with significant deeptech spin-off activity (used as a benchmark in ETH's own deeptech positioning — Cambridge alumni-founded ~70 deeptech start-ups vs. ETH's 192 since 2020). Comparable in research breadth and technology transfer output.
- Carnegie Mellon University: US leader in computer science, AI, and robotics research with a comparable concentration on technical disciplines. ETH's robotics spin-offs (e.g., ANYmal, Mimic Robotics, Rivr) compete directly with CMU's robotics ecosystem in talent and IP.
Regional players
- Tsinghua University: Asia's leading technical university with comparable research scale and AI/engineering focus. Operates primarily in China with limited direct competition in ETH's core geographies but comparable in research breadth and emerging tech leadership.
Emerging players
- ETH Zurich spin-out example: ANYbotics: ETH Zurich spin-off commercializing the ANYmal quadruped robot for industrial inspection. Representative of ETH's deeptech spin-off model, providing a real-world example of how research output converts into venture-scale commercial entities within ETH's ecosystem.
Market position
Strengths4 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks5 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
ETH Zurich social profiles
Digital presenceETH Zurich financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
ETH Zurich leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles14 records
ETH Zurich subsidiaries and ownership
Company hierarchySubsidiaries5 records
ETH Zurich funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
ETH Zurich M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments7 records
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about ETH Zurich
What does ETH Zurich do?
ETH Zurich (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich) is a Swiss Federal Institute of Technology that delivers undergraduate and graduate degree programs across 16 departments, conducts multi-disciplinary scientific research in fields ranging from quantum physics and computer science to biology and environmental science, and operates an active technology-transfer and spin-off creation program that supports venture formation from research outputs. It also offers doctoral and postdoctoral research positions, industry-sponsored contract research, and access to specialized research facilities.
Is ETH Zurich a public or private company?
ETH Zurich is a private company. It is classified as state government owned and is currently operating.
When was ETH Zurich founded?
ETH Zurich was founded in 1855. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is ETH Zurich based?
ETH Zurich is headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland, in the Europe region.
How does ETH Zurich make money?
Three revenue lines are on record. Tuition Fees are the primary driver. The others are federal Government Funding and technology Transfer and Spin-offs.
Who are ETH Zurich's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne), MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Stanford University, Caltech (California Institute of Technology), Imperial College London, Technical University of Munich (TUM), University of Cambridge and Carnegie Mellon University. Tsinghua University is listed as a regional player. ETH Zurich spin-out example: ANYbotics is listed as an emerging player.
Does ETH Zurich have an API?
No public API is recorded for ETH Zurich.
What industry is ETH Zurich in?
ETH Zurich's product category is Higher Education and Research. Its primary akta.pro industry code is EDAHAEAA, Engineering & Technology Institutes (Comprehensive), with a secondary code of EDAHAEAD, STEM-Focused Technical Universities. Its NAICS code is 6113 and its SIC code is 8711.