From May 29–31, the AI:AT Coworking Hub in Vienna will become a workspace for around 100 selected developers, students, and AI enthusiasts.
During the ZERO ONE HACK, teams will spend 36 hours building AI prototypes for real-world challenges in industry, insurance, and forecasting, with access to European high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure.
Artificial intelligence is not created only in research labs or strategic planning documents. It emerges when people with different skills work together on real problems, analyze data, train models, build prototypes, and critically evaluate results. This is exactly the environment that ZERO ONE HACK aims to create at the AI:AT Coworking Hub in Vienna.
The hackathon is organized by Lumos, a Vienna-based student organization focused on data science and AI. Together with partners from business, technology, and the Austrian AI ecosystem, the event brings together young talent, companies, researchers, and experienced mentors. The focus is not on simple demos or prompt-engineering exercises, but on developing, training, and presenting functional AI models.
For AI Factory Austria (AI:AT), the hackathon demonstrates what an open AI hub should provide: access to infrastructure, opportunities for practical application, talent development, and connections between researchers, industry, startups, and technology experts.
Real Challenges Instead of Abstract Tasks
Participants will work on three tracks that address key AI application areas in Europe:
- AI in Industry – industrial processes, manufacturing, and operational systems.
- AI in Insurance – conversational AI and integration of AI models into digital insurance products.
- AI in Forecasting – probabilistic predictions and intelligent decision-support systems.
hese tracks focus on questions many organizations are currently facing: How can AI systems be integrated into real workflows? How can models be trained, tested, and demonstrated reliably? How can technical capabilities be turned into tangible value for businesses and users?
Teams will develop their solutions throughout the weekend and submit code, pitch decks, and demos on Sunday. The best teams will present their projects to a jury composed of representatives from industry, research, technology, and the startup ecosystem.
Practical Access to European Computing Power
A key element of ZERO ONE HACK is access to powerful European AI infrastructure. Through AI:AT, teams can use the Leonardo EuroHPC supercomputer in Bologna, with dedicated GPU resources available for training, fine-tuning, and testing AI models under realistic conditions.
This makes high-performance computing tangible rather than abstract. It also reflects AI:AT’s mission: ensuring that organizations and talent are not held back by lack of access, expertise, or high entry barriers. AI:AT supports access to European computing resources and combines technical infrastructure with training, consulting, and ecosystem support.
The hackathon demonstrates an important principle for Austria’s AI ecosystem: AI expertise grows when infrastructure, knowledge, practical application, and community come together.
“The AI:AT Coworking Hub is an entry point into our ecosystem—a place where talent, companies, researchers, and technology partners come together. ZERO ONE HACK shows how we can bring people with ideas, real challenges, mentors, and European AI infrastructure together in one place and create collaboration, exchange, and innovation.”
Thomas Mayerhofer, Head of Innovation Center der AI Factory Austria AI:AT
Mentoring, Networking, and a European Perspective
Alongside project work, participants will have access to a curated program that includes mentoring sessions with experts from startups, industry, research, and technology companies, a panel discussion on the future of AI in Europe as well as talks and workshops on high-performance computing.
The Saturday panel discussion will explore the future direction of AI in Europe from the perspectives of business, infrastructure, investment, and applied technology. HPE will also provide a practical HPC session demonstrating how AI workloads are deployed on high-performance computing systems.
For participants, these activities are more than side events. Mentors help teams refine technical decisions, focus project ideas, and present results in a way that is understandable, scalable, and suitable for further development.
The AI:AT Coworking Hub as a Training Ground for AI Applications
ZERO ONE HACK highlights the AI:AT Coworking Hub as a practical workspace and meeting point for Austria’s AI ecosystem. The hub is more than a coworking space—it is a place where companies, startups, research institutions, public organizations, and talent can collaborate on AI projects.
AI:AT positions itself as a one-stop shop for AI in Austria, combining access to European computing infrastructure, technical expertise, training, trustworthy AI knowledge, business support, and ecosystem matchmaking. Its goal is to help organizations move AI projects from initial ideas to proofs of concept, prototypes, and real-world applications in a responsible and European context.
Hackathons such as ZERO ONE HACK complement this mission by creating teams, ideas, prototypes, learning experiences, and new connections between young talent and established organizations in a very short time.
“AI becomes tangible when we show what people can actually build with it. ZERO ONE HACK is a powerful example: it connects young talent, European computing infrastructure, and real-world use cases, demonstrating how collaboration can create meaningful impact.”
Daniel Pepl, Head of Marketing & Communications der AI Factory Austria AI:AT.
