3rd Open LLM Builders Summit
3rd Open LLM Builders Summit – September 30, 2026 at ETH AI Center
The third edition of the Open LLM Builders Summit will be held on 30 September 2026 at the ETH AI Center in Zurich, as an official event of the Zurich AI Festival.
The event is organized by the Swiss AI Initiative, coordinated by the ETH AI Center and EPFL AI Center. The summit will bring together leading international initiatives developing open foundation models, as well as infrastructure providers, researchers, and policymakers, to chart the path toward global, open, and collaborative AI development.
Schedule (tentative)
8:30-9:30 | Registration & Coffee
9:30-10:30 | Open-Source Initiatives
From Open Text Models to Open Multimodal Reasoners (Apertus)
Open Athena & Marin (Jeff Hammerbacher)
10:30-11:00 | Coffee
11:00-12:00 | Open-Source Initiatives
SEA-LION: Southeast Asian Languages in One Network (Rachel Liew, AI Singapore)
A series of foundation models for transparent AI in Europe (Matthias Bethge, OpenEuroLLM)
Open Foundation Models - Scaling Laws and Generalization (Jenia Jistev, LAION)
Building Public Interest AI Technology Together (Joshua Tan, Current AI)
12:00 - 12:15 | Open-Weight Initiatives
Nemotron 3 & Nemotron Alliance (Meriem Bendris, NVIDIA)
12:15-13:40 | Group Picture, Lunch & Poster Session
13:40-14:00 | Calls for Collaborative Projects from Major Facilities
Machine Learning at Scale at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS)
14:00-15:30 | Breakout rooms discussions
15:30-16:00 | Coffee Break + Consolidation of Proposals
16:00-17:00 | Discussion: Blueprints for Global Collaboration on Open LLMs
17:00 | Conclusions & Apero
📍 Location: ETH AI Center, Zürich
🗓️ Date: Wednesday, 30 September 2026
🔗 Registration: https://luma.com/yz3g1757
This edition’s focus is threefold:
Highlighting progress from major open efforts
Exploring how open models can be financed and supported in light of recent developments
Identifying sustainable and competitive funding models for open AI to ensure long-term viability
The summit welcomes contributors from research, government, and industry who are actively building transparent, multilingual, and mission-aligned AI systems for the public good. Participation is free, but registration is required.
🚨 Please note: Space is limited and registration is subjected to approval prior confirmation.
+++ This event is part of the Zurich AI Festival, taking place from September 28 to October 3, 2026. Zurich AI Festival unites the minds building the future - visionary founders, bold investors, and tech leaders shaping tomorrow. Connect to tomorrow!
Zurich AI Festival is a flagship initiative presented by ETH AI Center, Greater Zurich Area, the City of Zurich, the Canton of Zurich, and Zurich Tourism, and supported by leading partners from academia, industry, government and the broader AI ecosystem.
We look forward to welcoming you soon!
Zurich AI Festival Team