Cognizant hosts global OpenAI Codex Hackathon for 10,000 employees across six cities in India

IT services major Cognizant has announced its first-ever global Codex Hackathon in partnership with OpenAI, bringing together 10,000 of its associates across six Indian cities to build solutions using Codex, OpenAI's advanced AI coding platform. As per the company's official statement, the event, themed "Engineering the Frontier," ran simultaneously in Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune, Coimbatore and Kochi, marking one of the largest employee engagements of its kind by a global systems integrator (GSI) with a frontier AI coding tool.

The hackathon follows Cognizant's recognition earlier this year by OpenAI for its AI Builder capabilities, when the company was selected alongside other top global systems integrators to help scale Codex's adoption among enterprise clients worldwide.

Colleen Kapase, Vice President of Strategic Global Partnerships and Ecosystems at OpenAI, said the scale of the rollout was significant in itself. "Cognizant is bringing Codex to its workforce at significant scale, giving 10,000 associates across India the opportunity to learn, experiment and build with frontier AI," she said, adding that the hackathon marks "an important first step in Cognizant's ambition to translate those skills into practical solutions for enterprise customers."


Rajesh Varrier, President – Global Operations and Chairman & Managing Director of Cognizant India, framed the initiative around the interplay between human expertise and machine capability. "For us as an AI Builder, combining human judgment with AI capability is key to closing the gap between AI and enterprise results," Varrier said. "Hosting a global Codex Hackathon, right here in India, is a proud moment for us. It's an opportunity for our associates to build real fluency with frontier tools like Codex and develop custom AI solutions that deliver value."

"Participants at the six venues got hands-on exposure to Codex through live problem-solving challenges, exclusive OpenAI-led masterclasses, and curated learning material. The format also encouraged cross-functional collaboration, with engineers, AI enthusiasts and innovators from across Cognizant's India operations working together, before pitching their ideas and prototypes to business and technology leaders," it said.

Cognizant has indicated this is just the opening phase of a much larger rollout. The company plans to run additional editions of the hackathon in the coming months, with an eventual target of extending participation to more than 50,000 associates.

Last year, the company set a Guinness World Records title for the largest online generative AI hackathon through its global Vibe Coding Week, during which associates produced more than 30,000 prototypes using various vibe-coding tools.