Caltech hosts first math research hackathon: 40 hours, $2M compute, open conjectures
_sathvikr · x · 2026-09-05
Caltech will host Mathathon on October 30–November 1, 2026, billed as the first hackathon devoted to research-level mathematics, co-hosted with Anthropic and OpenAI and backed by DARPA expMath, Cognition, a16z, Y Combinator and dozens of other sponsors.
- 100 teams get frontier models for 40 hours to attack open conjectures or build new theory, then defend results before leading mathematicians; prizes come in two rounds, before and after community verification.
- Organizers cite recent AI breakthroughs in pure math: disproving Erdős's 80-year-old planar unit-distance conjecture (May 2026), the first explicit non-sofic group (open 27 years), and a claimed complex structure on the six-sphere (open 78 years, unverified).
- Core questions: how much can AI compress ideation-to-publication, and what is a mathematician's role when AI solves conjectures faster?
Applications are open via the event site.
Related event: Caltech Hosts World's First AI Math Hackathon with Anthropic and OpenAI(23 posts)→
More from Companies & People
- Meta details 2026 GEM ads model: Kunlun architecture brings 2.5x complexity growth — Meta_Engineers · 2026-10-21
- Stanford HAI welcomes 15 new scholars to its Data Science Scholars Program — StanfordHAI · 2026-10-21
- Brandon Galang announces departure from Vercel, teases next move — brandon_galang · 2026-10-20
- Ex-OpenAI policy chief blasts OpenAI's retreat from AI chip controls to appease Nvidia — Miles_Brundage · 2026-10-20
- Carnegie Mellon names Jignesh Patel founding dean of new Miami campus — sh_reya · 2026-10-20
- NVIDIA lands in Europe: Jensen Huang and German chancellor discuss industrial AI at GTC Berlin — nvidia · 2026-10-20