⚠️✅Register here: AI Token Economics Hackathon - Registration Form – Fill out form ✅⚠️
AI Token Economics Hackathon 2026
Theme: Reducing the Real Cost of AI
Seattle Data AI & Security is bringing together AI engineers, developers, data scientists, students, researchers, and product builders for the AI Token Economics Hackathon 2026 — a hybrid hackathon focused on one of the most important challenges in modern AI: how do we reduce the real cost of building and running AI systems?
As large language models and AI-powered applications continue to grow, token usage, inference costs, context size, model selection, and infrastructure efficiency are becoming critical engineering and product decisions. This hackathon challenges participants to move beyond simply building with AI and start thinking seriously about AI economics, efficiency, and scalability.
Hackathon Format
This is a hybrid hackathon.
Participants will work with their teams virtually for approximately two weeks, developing and refining their solutions before coming together for the full-day in-person finale.
📅 In-Person Finale: October 3, 2026
📍 City University of Seattle, Seattle, WA
👥 Team Size: 2–4 participants
During the in-person finale, teams will complete their projects, present their solutions, participate in judging, connect with the community, and compete for recognition. Winners will be announced live at the end of the event.
What Will You Work On?
Projects should explore practical approaches to reducing the cost and improving the efficiency of AI systems. Areas of focus may include:
Token Usage Optimization — reducing unnecessary token consumption while maintaining output quality.
Prompt & Context Efficiency — designing better prompting, context management, retrieval, caching, or memory strategies.
Model & Inference Cost Reduction — optimizing model selection, routing, inference workflows, architectures, or infrastructure.
Sustainable AI Product Economics — building AI applications where perfo
Unlock AI skills for non-tech professionals and boost productivity, confidence, and career growth.