ANNAM.AI, India’s first Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture, hosted at IIT Ropar under the Ministry of Education, Government of India has launched HACK CORE 2026, a National AI hackathon in collaboration with Syngenta and Google, inviting innovators to develop AI-driven solutions for crop health, pest management, soil intelligence, climate-resilient farming, and the wider adoption of biological products across India.
HACK CORE 2026 offers participants a platform to turn their ideas into innovation and field-level implementation. The winning team will visit the Syngenta’s Research Centre in Atessa, Italy, to see first-hand cutting-edge facilities and tools in biologicals research. The winning teams will be awarded Google Cloud credits, giving them access to Google’s cloud platform and a range of infrastructure, data, AI, and software to support their work. Participants will gain access to expert mentorship, hands-on ground-level research opportunities, and valuable knowledge exchange with agronomy experts from ANNAM.AI and Syngenta.
The hackathon is open to students, researchers, developers, startups, and innovators from across India. Interested participants can register, explore the challenge tracks, and access detailed information about the competition at https://www.annam.ai/hack-core. Applications for HACK CORE 2026 will close on July 21, 2026.
Dr. Pushpendra P. Singh, Project Director, ANNAM.AI, IIT Ropar, said: “As agriculture is now moving to more sustainable and climate-resilient practices, biological products are emerging as a key alternative to traditional crop protection solutions. By harnessing AI-tech, we innovators have an opportunity to help farmers improve productivity while enhancing environmental sustainability. By partnering with the world’s leading agricultural innovation company, Syngenta, HACK CORE 2026 brings together India’s brightest innovators to build practical, technology-led solutions that can help solve some of the most pressing challenges faced by farmers today.”
What sets HACK CORE 2026 apart is its intensive 36-hour Build Sprint to be hosted at IIT Ropar, where shortlisted teams will work alongside researchers, industry experts, and educators to transform ideas into working prototypes. The sprint will challenge the short-listed candidates to develop scalable solutions that can be translated into practical on-ground beneficial impact for the farmers.
