Kharagpur, India:
The Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur has announced DataQuest 2026, a national-level online hackathon focused on artificial intelligence and data-driven system design. The competition is being organised under Megalith 2026, IIT Kharagpur’s annual civil engineering technical fest, and is sponsored by Pathway, a leading real-time data processing and streaming platform.
The event aims to provide students across India with hands-on exposure to modern AI system architectures, particularly Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines, which are increasingly adopted in industry for building intelligent, context-aware applications.
Focus on Real-World AI Systems
Unlike conventional data science competitions that emphasize isolated model performance, DataQuest 2026 places strong emphasis on end-to-end system design. Participants are expected to design and implement AI solutions capable of retrieving relevant information and generating accurate, context-aware responses using modern machine learning techniques.
The problem statement, available on the official competition platform, is inspired by real-world use cases and encourages participants to think beyond algorithms and focus on scalable, production-ready AI systems.
Pathway Named as Event Sponsor
Pathway has been announced as the official Event Sponsor of DataQuest 2026. Its real-time data engine forms the technological backbone of the challenge, enabling participants to work with streaming data, incremental computation, and modern AI workflows.
The collaboration allows participants to gain hands-on exposure to tools and architectures that are actively used in industry. As part of the registration process, teams are required to engage with Pathway’s open-source ecosystem.
All team members must star the following GitHub repositories during registration:
Proof submission is compulsory and will be verified by the organising team.
🧑💻 Participation Details
Eligibility: Open to all graduating students across disciplines
Team Size: 1 to 5 members (solo participation allowed)
Inter-college and inter-specialization teams are permitted.
Teams will maintain self-hosted deliverables. When requested, a single view-only Drive link containing all materials must be shared with the organisers.
⏱️ Competition Timeline
Project Development Phase: 3 January 2026 – 10 January 2026
Final Submission Window: 12 January 2026 – 18 January 2026
🏆 Prizes and Recognition
Participants will compete for a prize pool of up to ₹50,000, along with StockEdge vouchers and certificates for top-performing teams. Detailed prize distribution will be announced on the competition platform.
Registrations Now Open
Registrations for DataQuest 2026 are now live. Interested students can register through the official platform here:
Register for DataQuest 2026:
https://unstop.com/hackathons/dataquest-iit-kharagpur-1607164
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