Open Science Intelligence Hackathon 2026 Set for October, Expands to Physical Sciences and Math

The 4th Open Scientific Intelligence (OSI) hackathon will take place October 21–22, 2026. According to organizer BenBlaiszik, the former LLM Materials Chemistry hackathon has been officially renamed the OSI hackathon, with its scope expanded from materials chemistry to the entire physical sciences and mathematics. The event is free and runs in a hybrid online/offline format. This community has grown into one of the largest in AI for Science and is worth watching.

Confirmed

• The event runs two days, October 21–22, 2026, free and hybrid; teams can form before or during the event across time zones, with the goal of producing publishable demos.
• Project directions include LLM applications, autonomous agents, datasets and benchmarks, models, scientific software, and the distillation of new physics or mathematics; broadly, any project that uses AI to improve scientific workflows is welcome.
• Open to graduate students, postdocs, lab staff, industry scientists, software developers, and other multidisciplinary backgrounds; organizers note many first-time participants have gone on to become leaders in the field.
• In 2025 there were 16 in-person sites worldwide; recruitment for 2026 site organizers is now open — sites only need to provide a venue and internet, while global judging and documentation are handled by the organizers.
• Each edition produces a community paper; 4 papers have already been published in Digital Discovery, arXiv, and MLST. 2026 results will likewise be written up as a paper, with as many participants as possible invited as co-authors.

Why it matters

• Community data shows rapid growth: 14 projects in 2023, 34 in 2024, and a surge to 120 projects in 2025, with more than 1,500 members.
• The renaming and expansion mark the event's evolution from a single materials chemistry niche into an AI for Science community platform spanning the entire physical sciences and mathematics, with a community paper mechanism ensuring results are preserved and openly shared.

2026-08-19 ~ 2026-08-19 · 8 related posts

• [source] Open Scientific Intelligence Hackathon 2026 Expands to Physical Sciences & Math — BenBlaiszik · 2026-08-19
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• [source] OSI Hackathon projects surge to 120 in three years — BenBlaiszik · 2026-08-19
• OSI Hackathon outcomes to be published as community papers — BenBlaiszik · 2026-08-19
• OSI Hackathon spans two days in hybrid format — BenBlaiszik · 2026-08-19
• OSI Hackathon open to multidisciplinary backgrounds — BenBlaiszik · 2026-08-19
• Call for hosts: OSI Hackathon global sites — BenBlaiszik · 2026-08-19
• [source] 4th Open Scientific Intelligence Hackathon set for October 2026 — BenBlaiszik · 2026-08-19