Caltech, Anthropic and OpenAI launch first math hackathon: 40 hours, $2M in AI compute
_sathvikr · x · 2026-09-05
Caltech announced the world's first research-level mathematics hackathon, running October 30–November 1, 2026 at Caltech.
- Format: 100 teams get access to frontier models and 40 hours to solve open conjectures or build new mathematical theory, then defend their results — and their understanding of them — before leading mathematicians.
- Prizes: awards for the most promising, well-explained results on-site, plus a second prize round after community verification; over $2M in AI compute credits.
- Context: organizers cite recent AI breakthroughs in pure math, including the disproof of Erdős's 80-year-old planar unit-distance conjecture, the first explicit non-sofic group, and a claimed complex structure on the six-sphere (unverified).
- Backers: co-hosted with Anthropic and OpenAI, supported by DARPA expMath, Cognition, a16z, Y Combinator, Cloudflare, Modal and dozens more.
The event aims to probe how much AI can compress the path from idea to peer-reviewed publication, and what a mathematician's role becomes when AI solves conjectures faster.
Related event: Caltech Hosts World's First AI Math Hackathon with Anthropic and OpenAI(23 posts)→
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