Building APAC’s AI future: How these companies are helping developers turn ideas into reality

HOME-GROWN technology company​ Sea and OpenAI are teaming up to launch the regional Sea x OpenAI Codex Hackathon, in a move aimed at supporting artificial intelligence innovation and growing developer communities across Asia-Pacific. Codex is OpenAI’s AI coding agent. It helps developers write, review, debug and ship software faster, including tasks like building features, fixing bugs, refactoring code and proposing pull requests.

Starting in Singapore, the event marks the start of a broader regional hackathon series that will later expand to markets including Indonesia, Taiwan and Vietnam, bringing together AI developers, students and builders to explore the use of AI and develop real-world applications.

The hackathon also marks OpenAI’s first regional hackathon partnership in Asia-Pacific, underscoring Sea and OpenAI’s shared commitment to strengthening South-east Asia’s AI ecosystem by nurturing and empowering the region’s next generation of AI builders.

Hosted at the Shopee building in the Singapore Science Park, the regional Sea x OpenAI Codex Hackathon will challenge participants to push the frontiers of AI across three key tracks: building autonomous and adaptive AI agents that can operate without human oversight and handle unexpected issues reliably; developing AI-native products and operations that are fundamentally shaped by AI rather than merely using AI as an add-on; and building deep-domain AI that contains deep understanding of a specific field and not just general capabilities. Teams may choose to tackle one or multiple tracks in their projects.

Designed to attract some of the region’s strongest technical talent, participants will compete in teams of three to four, with up to 40 teams shortlisted based on the strength of their applications.

Through this hackathon, Sea and OpenAI are hoping to push current boundaries of AI and spur innovation in the use of frontier AI tooling. And they are offering some attractive rewards as motivation: Winning teams will receive between US$5,000 (S$6,300) and US$30,000 in OpenAI API credits, while members of the top five teams will get a year’s subscription to ChatGPT Pro.

“At Sea, we believe innovation grows stronger when communities can learn, experiment and build together,” says David Chen, chief product officer at Shopee.

“As AI continues to shape the future of technology, it is important that more people across the region gain hands-on experience and contribute to how these technologies are applied to address real-world needs,” he added.

The hackathon also serves as a testament to the deepening partnership between the two companies, which was first announced last year starting with Shopee being named as launch partner for OpenAI’s Operator.

Sea has also adopted Codex across its engineering organisation, and the regional series aims to enable more developers across Asia-Pacific to explore AI-native engineering in practical ways.

“Sea is one of Singapore’s leading global technology companies and one of our largest Codex customers in Asia,” says Thibault Sottiaux, head of Codex at OpenAI.

“By adopting Codex across its internal software development workflows, Sea is putting AI-native engineering into practice at scale,” he said, adding that OpenAI was looking forward to supporting the next generation of developers and builders in the region through the hackathon series.

While participants can come prepared with ideas, they will be expected to do all their building from scratch on-site at the full-day event. Judges will evaluate the submissions on how well they frame the problem, the quality of their build, the depth of their thinking and how effectively they leveraged on Codex in the build process.

Applications will be reviewed and shortlisted based on teams’ technical background, their build plans and how well these are aligned with the build directions. Successful applicants will be notified on June 1.

The hackathon itself will take place at 8.30am to 9pm on June 6 at 5 Science Park Drive, Shopee Building, Singapore 118265. All team members will need to be present at the event throughout the day, or risk being disqualified.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner will be provided. Participants are to bring their own devices and chargers, but basic facilities such as tables, chairs and power sockets will be provided. More details on the tooling setup will be made available at the event.

Event details: Date: June 6, 2026 Time: 8:30am to 9:00pm Venue: Shopee building, 5 Science Park Drive, Singapore 118265

Registrations are now open and close May 28, 2026. Sea and OpenAI invite developers, students, entrepreneurs and AI enthusiasts to participate and contribute ideas that can help shape the future of AI-enabled innovation.

Click here for more information and registration details.