Hack Apertus is a Swiss open-source AI hackathon series centered on Apertus, Switzerland’s fully open large language model. It is organized by the aiLights Association with co-initiators Artifact and Swiss Engineering, as part of the Swiss AI Action Plan and an official pre-event of the Geneva AI Summit.
The program
- Online hackathon (October 2026): Red-teaming, adaptation to Swiss dialects and values, Apertus adoption.
- On-site hackathons: Events in six cities (Bern/Liebefeld, Zurich, Basel, Biel/Bienne, Lausanne, St.Gallen) with around 600 participants solving partner challenges.
- Grand Finals (May 2027): Top-10 project showcase and the Hack Apertus Award in St.Gallen.
All results are released as open source, and real-world deployment is actively encouraged.
Why does this fit onprem.ai?
The core values of Hack Apertus are ours: open, sovereign, trustworthy. No lock-in, no hidden dependencies, no black boxes. As a partner we support the series and contribute our experience running Apertus in production on self-hosted infrastructure.