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TUM.ai

TUM.ai Summit

Overengineered. Overregulated. Still world class.

For decades, Germany's best engineers moved to the Bay and built world-class companies. The next generation is landing right now.

Become a partner

Partners include

Format

A summit and a hackathon in San Francisco.

Come for the stage, stay for the build, or back both.

Track 01

Summit

Talks and panels with German founders, operators and investors who built in the Bay.

  • Keynotes from founders who made the move
  • Panels on building, hiring and fundraising across both ecosystems
  • Curated networking with students, founders and investors
Pitch a talk

Track 02

Hackathon

Builders from TUM.ai and the Bay Area ship real products in one weekend.

  • Challenges set by partner companies
  • Mentors from partner teams on site
  • Prizes and a final demo in front of the summit audience
Bring a challenge

Why now

The Munich–Bay pipeline is already running.

German engineers have been building the Bay for decades. TUM.ai is where the next ones meet.

In unicorns German founders built abroad
$342.5B
More than twice the $144.7B they built at home.
Of German-founded unicorns were built in the US
33%
Only 40% were built in Germany.
Google's first check
$100K
Written in 1998 by TUM alumnus Andy Bechtolsheim, who co-founded Sun Microsystems.
Start-ups founded at TUM in 2025
115
A new record. The next wave is on its way.

About TUM.ai

Europe's leading student AI initiative.

TUM.ai (opens in a new tab) is rooted at the Technical University of Munich (opens in a new tab), Germany's MIT. We run hackathons across Europe with the European Hackathon League (opens in a new tab), back Munich's brightest minds in our own incubator (opens in a new tab), and publish state-of-the-art research (opens in a new tab) at venues like ICLR and ICML with MIT, Cambridge, IBM and others. Our alumni join top companies and startups, do research at leading institutions, and found breakout YC companies.

Now we're coming to San Francisco to connect two ecosystems: Munich's brightest students in the same room as the Bay's sharpest builders, with founders and investors there to meet them early.

People

Built by people who made the move

Partner with us

We're looking for partners.

Sponsors, speakers and companies who want to set a hackathon challenge. If you built your company between Munich and the Bay, we'd love to have you on board.