This call has closed. See the open hardware hackathons.
Bharat AI-SoC Challenge 2026/27: build edge AI products on Arm hardware
The Bharat AI-SoC Challenge asks Indian students and developers to run AI models on Arm devices. Register by 19 October 2026; winners get a cash award.
The Bharat AI-SoC Challenge 2026/27 is the second edition of a national challenge led by Arm, with IIT Delhi as the mentor institute. India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology takes part through its Chips to Startup (C2S) Programme. The theme is applied AI on a system on chip, which means running AI models locally on edge devices.
The first edition was for students only. This edition is open to students and to working professionals and developers, who compete on equal terms. Participants must be Indian nationals. Teams have one to three members. Students need a nomination from their college and a faculty mentor.
Teams choose one of five problem statements. They cover crop disease detection for farmers, a waste sorting assistant, scam and phishing detection, a personal learning assistant, and defect detection in factories. Four tasks ask for a Llama model running through ExecuTorch on an Arm device. The learning assistant must run on an Arm based Android smartphone.
Registration closes on 19 October 2026. Phase 1 submissions, with a report, source code and demo, are due on 30 November 2026. Shortlisted teams are named in mid December and get mentoring to build a proof of concept by 10 February 2027. Finals and winners follow in early March 2027.
One winner is chosen for each problem statement after a live virtual demo and jury questions. Each winning team receives a cash award from IIT Delhi. The page does not state the amount.
Quick answers
Which hardware can teams use?
Teams build on Arm based devices such as a Raspberry Pi 5, with or without an AI HAT+, Arm based Android phones, or other Arm based Linux devices.
Can a team enter more than one problem statement?
No. Each team picks one of the five problem statements. One change of team members or challenge area is allowed within 15 days of registration.
What do finalists receive?
Every member of a team that submits a completed project gets a certificate. All finalists get branded programme mementoes.