Thinking of Joining AI Competition in 2026? Start Here

One thing that really helped me level up my AI skill set was competitions. There’s nothing better than putting yourself into a competition and struggling to solve a given task within a limited time (and big competitions often come with big prizes too!).

Click here to read if you are not Medium subscriber!

If you are an AI learner, this is a must-do step that you should not miss. For you, and for my dearest easybite.ai YouTube subscribers, I’ve listed my recommendations and the competition platforms I researched and cross-checked one by one.

Ready to explore AI competitions?

General Competition Platforms

• Kaggle
• Drivendata
• AIcrowd
• Devpost
• Huggingface

These are general competition platforms that you can scroll through. When I first started learning ML, Kaggle was my go-to platform, but now there are many more options than a few years ago.

There are interesting tasks on these platforms with exciting challenges like:

• “Can AI decode 4,000-year-old business records?”
• “Some ancient scrolls are too fragile to open, but that doesn’t mean we can’t read them. Can your model help?”

Scroll through ongoing challenges, sign up, and play around with the data. Peek at other people’s code, get inspiration, and work on your own solutions. Share with the community, ask for advice, and be active on these platforms.

If you are intimidated by overwhelming competitions, I recommend trying these Kaggle “Getting Started” classic competitions. These are basic Kaggle “bible” competitions where you’ll find rich examples, discussions, and code notebooks to refer to.

Kaggle competitions

Flagship global / big‑tech hosted

This is the fun part: company-sponsored hackathons. They often come with strong mentorship programmes, internship opportunities, and sometimes substantial prizes. If you have a dream company in mind, this can be a fantastic way to make a lasting impression.

They’re also a great opportunity to experiment with the latest technologies, especially emerging areas like AI agents. I recently joined the Google ADK (Agent Development Kit) hackathon, where I built my own news generator agent using Google ADK and the Gemini API models. It was an incredibly enjoyable and hands-on learning experience.

1. Google Lakecity Hackathon 2026 (Google Developer Groups)
2. Google GDSC Solution Challenge (Google Developer Student Clubs (GDSC)
3. Google Cloud Vertex AI Hackathon 2026 (Expected)
4. **Google Gemini 3 Global Hackathon 2026** (Google DeepMind — Gemini models, multimodal AI)
5. **Microsoft Imagine Cup 2026**
6. **Amazon AWS AI League 2026 Championship**
7. **2026 Amazon Nova AI Challenge**
8. **AWS Breaking Barriers Challenge 2026**
9. **NVIDIA Hackathons**
10. **IBM AI Hackathons 2026**

Major global + national‑scale AI hackathons

1. **USAII AI NextGen Challenge 2026** (US only)
2. **SOTA‑AI December Contest 2025–26**
3. **NASA ORBIT Challenge 2026**
4. **NEXT Hackathon (SuperAI)**
5. **SuperAI Genesis Startup Competition 2026**
6. **Qualcomm Edge AI Developer Hackathons 2026**

Conference tracks / Research

Research-focused competitions often come with lengthy problem statements and massive datasets, which can feel overwhelming for beginners. I’d recommend starting with more general or beginner-level competitions on platforms like Kaggle or DevPost, and then gradually moving towards research-oriented challenges as you build confidence and experience.

1. **Huawei ICT Competition 2025–2026 (AI & Innovation tracks)**
2. **WAICY 2026 — World Artificial Intelligence Competition for Youth**
3. **AI for Agriculture 2026 — Beyond Visible Spectrum (Kaggle)**
4. **AI Mathematical Olympiad — Progress Prize (ongoing on Kaggle)**

Others

1. Global Threat Modeling Hackathon 2026
2. Developer week hackathon 2026

I’ve tried to list as many competitions as I can, but do leave a comment if there’s one I’ve missed!

My final piece of advice: if you’re unsure which competition to join, follow your instinct. If it looks difficult, give it a go anyway. Every attempt counts, and you’ll be surprised how quickly your skills improve with each challenge you take on.