Malaysia’s largest artificial intelligence hackathon drew 684 developers, designers and founders to Monash University Malaysia, where 140 AI-powered projects were built and demoed within 24 hours, highlighting the country’s growing depth in AI talent.

The Cursor x Anthropic Hackathon Malaysia adopted a non-stop, high-intensity format that saw teams form on the spot, code through the night and present working applications by the end of the weekend. Organisers said the approach was intended to replicate real-world startup conditions rather than a traditional conference setting.

The event was backed by global technology firms including Cursor and Anthropic, alongside AWS, Vercel, Groq, ElevenLabs and more than 20 other companies. Participants were given direct access to enterprise-grade AI tools, with development credits of up to US$5,000 from Cursor and US$1,000 in Claude API access from Anthropic awarded to winning teams.

Projects spanned areas such as voice AI, creative tools, enterprise databases and digital banking, with fintech-related applications accounting for a significant share of submissions. Nearly half of the projects were pitched under venture-focused tracks, signalling strong commercial intent.

About a quarter of participants arrived without pre-formed teams, leading to collaborations between students, developers and founders. The hackathon concluded AISEA’s two-week regional builder festival across five Southeast Asian countries, reinforcing Malaysia’s role in the region’s emerging AI ecosystem.