PowerSync AI Hackathon: $8k+ in Prizes

We are hosting a virtual hackathon where the challenge is to build innovative AI-powered software using PowerSync as a sync engine.

Bring your favorite AI use case to life and compete for $8,000+ in prizes, including bonus partner prizes and awards!

Registration form: Register here

Join the #ai-hackathon channel in the PowerSync Discord server for live updates and discussions, and feel free to use the #hackathon-lounge voice channel.

See Ideas for What You Could Build below for inspiration of where PowerSync can be useful for building AI software.

Partners

PowerSync has partnered with Supabase, Neon, Mastra, TanStack, and Cactus to bring more bonus prizes to this hackathon.

Timeline (All times in Pacific Time, PT)

Hackathon starts: Friday, March 6, 2026 at 12:00 AM PT
Submission deadline: Friday, March 20, 2026 at 11:59 PM PT
Winners announced: Wednesday, March 25, 2026

Prize Pool

Core prizes

1st: $3,000 cash
2nd: $1,000 cash
3rd: $500 cash

Bonus Prizes

Best Local-First Submission
Prize: $500 cash
Build an app aligned with the local-first principles. Local models are encouraged but not required.

Best Rust SDK Submission
Prize: $500 cash
Build something using the PowerSync Rust Client SDK (pre-alpha).

Best Submission Using TanStack Start/DB/AI
Prize: Office hour with Tanner Linsley + TanStack swag bag
Use one or more of TanStack Start, TanStack DB, or TanStack AI in a meaningful way.

Best Submission Using Supabase
Prize: $1,000 Supabase credits
Use Supabase as a meaningful part of your backend architecture.
Bonus: Free $25 Supabase credits are available for all participants.

Best Submission Using Mastra
Prize: $500 Amazon gift card
Use Mastra for AI agents/workflows in a meaningful way.
Bonus: Free copy of Principles of Building AI Agents for all participants using Mastra.

Best Submission Using Neon
Prize: Neon credits (final amount will be announced)
Use Neon as a meaningful part of your backend architecture.
Bonus: Free $100 Neon credits are available for all participants.

Best Submission Using Cactus
Prize: 1 month of Cactus hybrid inference (up to 1,000 hours of audio)
Use Cactus hybrid inference in a meaningful way (on-device + cloud routing).

Ideas for What You Could Build

PowerSync is a sync engine that removes the complexity of synchronizing state across backend, frontend, and agents. It syncs data between your backend database (PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, or SQL Server) and a local SQLite database for instant client/agent access. This makes real-time experiences and distributed AI workflows significantly easier to build.

The best would be to “scratch your own itch”: If you’re using an AI tool today, and are frustrated with any aspect of the state management, latency, offline capabilities, etc. then that could be a great opportunity to build your own version of that tool using PowerSync.

Food for thought: If one of the below ideas excite you, take it as extra validation, but you are not required to build one of these to participate. Any AI use case that meaningfully incorporates PowerSync is valid. Let your imagination run wild!

Agentic Collaborative Apps: Build apps where humans and agents work in the same shared live environment. PowerSync can serve as the state synchronization layer for humans, agents, and services. Learn more in our blog post, Unleashing the Power of Sync. Some specific ideas: (but don’t let this limit you!)
- Productivity tools such as task management, document collaboration, AI-assisted meeting notes, etc.
- Developer tools and IDE copilots, for use cases such as pair programming, evals, tracing, debugging, QA, test harnesses, simulation, and workflow automation.
- Business operations tools such as support, incident response, onboarding, scheduling, invoicing, customer communication, reporting and compliance.
Local-First & Offline-Capable AI Products: PowerSync can be useful when paired with local/open-weight models on devices, and for combining offline and cloud execution. PowerSync allows AI systems to operate on a fully queryable local SQLite database, while synchronizing with backend systems when connectivity is available. This could enable use cases like:
- Fully offline AI assistants/copilots. Especially relevant for regulated or disconnected environments, e.g. field technicians (oil & gas, mining, utilities), defense / government, hospitals, manufacturing plants, warehouses, ships, aircraft and other remote sites. PowerSync can serve as the data plane for local AI where structured data is queryable in SQLite and sync happens opportunistically when connectivity exists.
- Connectivity-resilient agents: Agents and AI systems that continue operating without connectivity, queue actions locally and reconcile with a backend later. Specific ideas include field data collection & summarization, incident reporting, research agents, compliance audits, recommendations, anomaly detection, etc. Think environments like retail point-of-sale, robots, kiosks, vehicles, etc.
- Real-time operational systems: There are use cases such as logistics, robots and manufacturing where instant local intelligence is needed. Edge nodes can run local AI models, operate on local data, and sync results upstream when connectivity allows.
- Hybrid RAG: Structured SQL + vector search. Query PowerSync-provided SQLite for structured data and exact answers, and combine it with embeddings for fuzzy / semantic lookup.
- Hybrid cloud/local inference. Alternating between cloud frontier models and local models for different inference tasks can be useful for saving costs, minimizing data transfer, and improving response latency. Inference results can be synced from cloud to device or device to cloud. See our Cactus category prize below.
- AI-driven event processing and data pipelines: Database changes can trigger local AI processing, generate structured results, and sync results back via SQLite and PowerSync.
- The above use cases may also manifest in embedded systems: think connected vehicles, IoT, robotics, drones, etc. The PowerSync Rust SDK can be useful here, and we have a special category prize for that (see below).
Agentic Workflows: Build agentic workflows using PowerSync + your backend database as the workflow engine (Postgres, MongoDB, MySQL, SQL Server). Get distributed durable workflow state that is resilient to intermittent connectivity. Specific ideas include customer support triage, sales lead qualification, field service inspections, incident response workflows, document processing pipelines, marketing content pipelines, product development workflows, etc.
Personal AI Assistants & Machine-Control Agents: For OpenClaw and similar tools, PowerSync may be useful to enable things like multi-device collaborative control, cloud oversight and audit logs. The agent loop can be recorded in the database (SQLite synced to a backend database).
Multi-Agent Coordination Systems: Build orchestration layers where multiple agents can route work, share memory, recover from failure, and escalate to humans when needed. This can scale to large agent swarms that collaborate through shared state.
AI Observability, Governance & Safety: Tools to track and audit AI behavior. Example projects: Prompt and response logging systems, AI decision audit trails, human-in-the-loop approval workflows, AI confidence scoring dashboards, monitoring hallucinations and failures.
AI Memory Systems: AI agents need multiple forms of memory: episodic, semantic, procedural, and shared memory. PowerSync + SQLite may be useful as a substrate for this, and can sync shared memory across agents and devices.

Judges

Dev Agrawal | Conrad Hofmeyr | Kobie Botha

More judges to be announced soon.

Helpful Resources

Rules and Guidelines

1) Eligibility

Open worldwide where legally permitted.
Participants must be 18+ (or age of majority in their jurisdiction where applicable).
Employees and active contractors of PowerSync and partner companies, official judges, and immediate family members are not eligible for prizes.
Participants must comply with applicable local laws, export controls, and sanctions restrictions.

2) Team Requirements

Minimum team size: 1
Maximum team size: 4
A participant may only be on one team.
Each team must designate one primary contact for submission and prize fulfillment.

3) Build + Stack Requirements

Projects must be AI-powered applications/features/workflows.
Projects must use PowerSync as a meaningful part of the implementation, and must use Sync Streams.
Any language, framework, and deployment stack is allowed. See PowerSync Client SDKs.
Open-source libraries, SDKs, and starter templates are allowed.
The project’s core implementation must be built during the hackathon window.

4) Submission Requirements

Each submission must include:

Project name and short description
Team member names and contact email
Public source repository link (or private access instructions for judges)
Demo video (required) and/or live demo URL
Prize categories selected in the submission form

The submission form will be made available soon — check back here for a link.

5) Prize Category Requirements

A project can be considered for core prizes automatically if it meets all baseline requirements.
For each bonus category, teams must:
1. Select that category in the submission form.
2. Meaningfully use the tech required for that category in the project.
3. Describe that usage clearly in the architecture summary.

A single project may be eligible for multiple bonus categories, and entering multiple categories is encouraged.

6) Judging Criteria

Projects are evaluated on:

Originality (30%)
Impact and usefulness (20%)
Technical implementation quality (25%)
PowerSync usage (15%)
Product and UX quality (10%)

Tie-breaker order:

Higher PowerSync usage score
Higher impact score
Final judge panel vote

7) Disqualification Criteria

Submissions may be disqualified for:

Not using PowerSync meaningfully
Missing required submission artifacts
Plagiarism or misrepresentation of authorship
Fake/non-functional demos presented as working products
Harassment, abuse, hate speech, doxxing, or other code-of-conduct violations
Violating applicable law, partner terms, or platform terms

8) IP, Publicity, and Prize Fulfillment

Teams retain ownership of their projects.
By submitting, teams grant PowerSync and partners permission to showcase project name, summary, screenshots, and demo clips for hackathon-related promotion.
Winners may be required to provide valid identification details and payment verification information before prize fulfillment.
Winners are responsible for applicable taxes and reporting obligations unless required otherwise by law.

9) Organizer Rights

PowerSync may update rules, timelines, category details, or prize operations when required for legal, operational, or security reasons. Material changes will be posted on this page.