Caltech Mathathon – first hackathon ever devoted to research level mathematics
Caltech will host the first research-level mathematics hackathon on October 30, giving 100 teams frontier AI models to attack open conjectures.
The Caltech Mathathon runs October 30 to November 1, assembling about 100 teams that will receive frontier models and over $2 million in AI credits to work on open mathematical problems. Teams will defend their results before leading mathematicians, with prize rounds before and after community verification of the results. The announcement cites recent AI-driven math results, including the disproof of Erdos's 80-year-old planar unit-distance conjecture, the first explicit non-sofic group, and a claimed complex structure on the six-sphere (unverified).
- Runs October 30 to November 1 at Caltech with roughly 100 invited teams
- Over $2 million in AI credits plus prizes before and after peer verification
- Cites 2026 AI math results: planar unit-distance conjecture disproved, first explicit non-sofic group
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40 hours, $2M+ AI credits,
solve an open problem.
AI has made groundbreaking progress in pure math in the past few months:
- May 20, 2026: Erdos's planar unit-distance conjecture was disproved (open 80 years)[1].
- August 1, 2026: The first explicit non-sofic group was constructed (open 27 years)[2].
- August 23, 2026: The six-sphere was shown to admit a complex structure (open 78 years; unverified)[3].
This AI advancement raises the following questions: (a) How much can AI speed up the process from ideation to peer-reviewed publication? (b) What is the role of a mathematician when AI can solve conjectures faster?
We are assembling the top math talent worldwide to answer these questions. On October 30th, a hundred teams will be given frontier models to solve open conjectures and build new mathematical theories. Then, they will defend their results before leading mathematicians, who will assess their understanding of the results.
We will award prizes to the most promising and well-explained results at the event. Then, after the math community has had time to verify these results, we will provide a second round of prizes.
It will be the first hackathon ever devoted to research level mathematics.
- Where: California Institute of Technology
- When: October 30th to November 1st
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