«Hack Apertus» Zurich is part of the 2nd stage of «Hack Apertus», a Switzerland-wide hackathon series built on Apertus, the country's open large language model. Over 2 days, teams take on challenges set by our partners and turn them into working prototypes on Apertus, developed for sovereign infrastructure across the public and private sector.
It runs 27-28 November 2026 in Zurich, with 100 hackers in the room, the 8B and 70B Apertus models to work with, and everything you build staying open and reusable. On day 2, the top 6 teams pitch live at the Zurich Finals and compete for a place at the Grand Finals in St.Gallen.
📍 AI Startup Center at Technopark Zurich, Technoparkstrasse 1, 8005 Zurich
📅 27–28 November 2026 · 08:00–21:30 CET (venue stays open overnight)
👥 100 hackers, teams of up to 5. Come with a crew or find one on the day.
🎯 3 partner challenges (incl. Supertext, ti&m)
🎟️ Free and open to all
Who's it for?
Open to everyone, and a great fit if you're an AI/ML engineer, software developer, data scientist, researcher, or NLP practitioner. Also very much for technical students (CS, data science, computational linguistics) and for domain experts who aren't engineers.
You don't need to be an Apertus expert to show up and learn.
We've got you covered
Food, drinks, a place to crash, and mattresses are on us. There's a separate quiet room reserved for women. Pull an all-nighter or get some sleep. If you like Basecaps, you'll love the «Hack Apertus» one...
If you live more than 100 km from the venue, we cover up to CHF 100 in travel costs against receipts.
What to bring
A laptop, plenty of energy, and your own sleeping bag.
The full journey
«Hack Apertus» runs in 3 stages.
Stage 1: the Online Hackathon (1–16 October).
Stage 2: Zurich, among 6 On-site hackathons across Switzerland.
Stage 3: the Grand Finals on 14 May 2027 in St.Gallen, where the main «Hack Apertus» Award is decided and Apertus projects are showcased.
🏆 Win the Zurich Finals and you qualify automatically for the Grand Finals.
Online and on-site run as separate phases, so you choose how far you go. Whether you hacked the online round or you're joining fresh, you belong here.
Want in?
Create an account and finish your builder profile to apply.
