Since AI Hackathon 2026 — Turku (MLH)

The Since AI Hackathon 2026 runs November 6 to 8, 2026 at EduCity in Turku, Finland — a 72-hour, execution-focused AI hackathon open to builders worldwide and an official Major League Hacking (MLH) member event for the 2026 season. It is built for developers, researchers, designers, and entrepreneurs who would rather ship a working AI product than pitch a slide deck, and with a target of 1,000+ participants and a €50,000 cash prize pool, it is positioning itself as one of Europe's larger student-and-builder AI hackathons.

What the Since AI Hackathon is

Since AI Hackathon is the flagship annual event of Since AI, a Turku-based, globally connected AI innovation ecosystem. The format is deliberately strict and refreshingly concrete: no slide decks, no mockups, only working demos. Over a single 72-hour sprint, teams form, choose a challenge, build, and present a functioning AI product to judges. The inaugural 2025 edition brought together 260 builders who shipped more than 30 AI projects, and the 2026 event scales that ambition sharply, aiming for over a thousand participants drawn from across Finland, Europe, and beyond. The whole event is held in English, lowering the barrier for international builders.

Tracks, challenge partners, and prizes

Rather than abstract themes, Since AI structures its competition around real industry challenges set by partner companies. For 2026 the challenge partners are Google for Developers, Bayer, Sandvik, Kongsberg, and Valmet — meaning teams work on genuine problems posed by global engineering, healthcare, and technology firms, with mentors from those companies on site throughout the weekend. The event also fields an open track for builders pursuing their own ideas. Key facts at a glance:

• Prize pool: €50,000 in cash.
• Compute: participants get GPU and compute access from Google and AMD, plus access to the LUMI supercomputer, so teams can focus on building rather than infrastructure.
• Technology partners: tooling and credits from ElevenLabs, Aiven, Lovable, n8n, and Featherless.ai, among others.
• Capital and ecosystem: involvement from investors and institutions including Antler, Inventure, Wave Ventures, the University of Turku, and the City of Turku.

As an MLH member event, the hackathon also brings the recognition, prizes, and API credits that come with being part of the world's largest hackathon league, plus a route into MLH's global hacker community.

Who should attend

This is an event for builders who ship. It is open to students and professionals alike — software developers, machine learning researchers, designers, and founders — and the emphasis on working demos rewards people who can move from idea to running prototype quickly. The pitch to participants is practical: the best solutions get noticed and, in some cases, hired, and past participants have founded startups and built lasting professional networks through the Since AI community. For students in particular, the combination of real corporate challenges, free GPU and supercomputer access, mentorship, and direct exposure to recruiting partners makes the weekend an unusually high-leverage way to build a portfolio piece and a network at once.

Why Turku and the Finnish AI scene

The choice of Turku is more than logistical. Finland punches above its weight in AI and deep tech, with a strong research base, a culture of public-private collaboration, and ready access to the LUMI supercomputer, one of Europe's most powerful machines, hosted in the country. Since AI has positioned itself as a bridge between that research strength and the practical work of building and shipping products, and the hackathon is its most visible expression of that mission. For international participants, the event offers a window into a Nordic innovation ecosystem that increasingly attracts founders and investors, with capital partners such as Antler and Inventure in the room and a host city, Turku, actively backing the event.

How to take part

The Since AI Hackathon 2026 is free to enter for all builders worldwide, with registration open ahead of the November dates. The venue, EduCity at Joukahaisenkatu 7 in Turku, is the modern campus of Turku University of Applied Sciences (Turku AMK), offering facilities sized for a thousand-plus participants to collaborate and demo. Applicants register through the official Since AI site and are encouraged to join the event's community channels to find teammates before arriving. Coming at a moment when builder culture and rapid AI prototyping have become central to how new products and companies emerge, the 2026 edition reflects a wider European push to turn AI research into shipped, working software — and to do it in three intense days. For anyone who wants to test their skills against real industry problems with serious compute behind them, Since AI Hackathon 2026 in Turku is a standout entry on the AI hackathon calendar.