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QAI announced that it partnered with Hugging Face to host the inaugural hackathon from November 5 to 7 at M7 within the Msheireb Cultural Forum in Doha. More than 140 engineers, students and researchers from Qatar-based universities, organisations and startups formed 45 teams to develop working AI prototypes addressing national challenges with open-source models available on the Hugging Face platform. The event included technical workshops and mentoring sessions led by engineers from both organisations throughout the weekend. Teams presented their projects to a judging panel on the final day.
An all-female team called YOLO from Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar claimed first place for AquaGuard, an early warning AI system designed to shield the country’s desalination plants from oil spills and red tides. According to QAI, the submitted projects covered a range of sectors including healthcare, nutrition, Arabic language applications, environmental protection, cybersecurity and drone technology. The third-place team Gradient Descent earned recognition for a drone-based monitoring and tracking solution, Qatar News Agency reported.
Winning teams received compute credits from QAI and Hugging Face to support further development of their prototypes, the organisers stated. Participants had been selected from more than 200 applications received prior to the event. The hackathon format required in-person attendance for the full duration, with solo applicants matched into teams where needed.
QAI said the event advances its mission to engage and develop leading AI talent in Qatar while combining its focus on trusted AI with Hugging Face’s global open-source community. The collaboration aims to create a robust pipeline of skilled professionals capable of turning AI technologies into practical regional applications. Organisers described the builds as impressive in their relevance to Qatar-specific issues.
A government announcement from December 2025 detailed that QAI was established as a subsidiary of the Qatar Investment Authority to construct resilient digital ecosystems and drive sustainable development through artificial intelligence. The company works to position Qatar as a hub for responsible AI by investing in local infrastructure, including high-performance GPU deployments within certified data centres. All data processed through QAI systems remains stored locally under Qatari jurisdiction to meet national cybersecurity and privacy standards.
The Qatar National Vision 2030 frames these efforts as part of a broader push toward a knowledge-based economy, according to official statements on the QAI launch. Hugging Face contributed its platform expertise to the hackathon, marking what organisers called the first such event by the company in the GCC region. This initiative follows QAI’s ongoing work to attract global partnerships and build capabilities across key economic sectors.
