Hong Kong Hub for Apart Research's AI Collusion Sprint

Project Overview

Apart Research, together with Poseidon Research and AE Studio, is running a three-day sprint on collusion between AI agents, October 23-25, 2026.

Url: https://apartresearch.com/sprints/ai-collusion-research-sprint-2026-10-23-to-2026-10-25 

This research sprint studies collusion between AI agents, in markets and in everyday agent deployments. Alongside engineers and researchers, the sprint is targeting top quantitative finance talent, so participants will likely be based in the world's top financial capitals.

Apart Research has already secured one in-person hub for the hackathon — the Collider in NYC.

In our meeting with Apart, they had expressed a desire to attract “cracked” finance talent from all over the world.

We at AI Safety HK (AISHK) support the vision behind this research sprint, and we have offered to expand its coverage to one of the world's most important financial centers.

Why an in-person hub in Hong Kong?

Hong Kong is an ideal in-person venue for this event. 

• It is ranked 3rd on the Global Financial Centres Index, with the HK Financial Secretary recently having made an express ambition to take HK to 2nd rank within 15 years. 

• Hong Kong has overtaken Switzerland as the world’s top cross-border wealth hub. and already serves as the hub for quantitative finance across the Asia-Pacific region.

• Many of the world’s top quantitative finance firms have offices in Hong Kong, and tapping into the talent of those firms would make this research sprint a much greater success.

Over the past few months since we commenced operations, AISHK has had significant success in fieldbuilding for AI safety. However, within our network, the vast majority of elite finance talent has had no opening into hands-on AI safety work. Most of these individuals are unlikely to participate in a team-based research sprint remotely, and would appreciate a physical space during the weekend to build and collaborate.

What we will do

AISHK has offered to assist Apart Research in creating a conducive environment for this talent to have their first practical engagement with AI safety.

We are submitting this grant application to secure accessible, comfortable in-person facilities  in Hong Kong, to create a good experience for the city’s top quants.

The minimum funding target would allow us to achieve this basic goal. It would cover advertising and outreach (this is particularly important given the tight timeline) as well as a suitable coworking space, facilities, and other resources needed to make the experience comfortable and productive for participants. This represents the minimum level of support required to host an in-person hub for a research sprint and attract top quants in Hong Kong.

Reaching the target level of funding would also allow us to deepen our collaboration with Apart Research, providing a pathway for promising participants to continue developing their research beyond the sprint. 

We have secured in-principle agreement from Apart Research to provide HK’s top-performing team with their own research fellowship. Apart’s research fellowships can typically last 6+ months.

While Apart Research would be supplying the necessary mentorship, compute and other project-relevant infrastructure for the fellowship awardees, AISHK would provide the physical community infrastructure to keep the team motivated and supported during the fellowship. The requested target funding would be a necessary top-up to our pre-existing coworking-space budget which we secured in our previous grant application, and was initially intended to cover space for our core team only. 

With the award of an Apart Fellowship for the top-performing local team, this additional financial support would allow us to accommodate the winning team within our workspace and give them a physical base from which to continue their work. 

More broadly, it would also be an important first step towards our longer-term ambition of developing a Hong Kong-based hub for AI safety organisations and teams across the wider community.

A. Minimum: $10,000

Our minimum funding goal will allow us to run the in-person Hong Kong hub for Apart Research’s sprint weekend on AI Agent Collusion. Relevant expenditure headings:

i) Coworking space (Sat-Sun): $5000

This represents an upper-end quote (from WeWork) on co-working spaces available in Hong Kong in central neighborhoods that are in close proximity to all the finance offices. We are still shopping around for more affordable yet convenient providers.

ii) Catering: $2500

This covers catering for two days. It will cover two meals a day plus one round of snacks for around 20-25 people.

iii) Advertising: $2000

Apart Research has provided an initial advertising and outreach budget of $2,000 to promote the event to top finance talent.

Given the extremely tight timeline (<6 weeks to the sprint), we may need to scale up quickly if initial traction is slower than expected. This line item is therefore a buffer to run an emergency publicity push.

Concrete measures we can deploy within days include:

• Targeted LinkedIn ads to “quantitative researcher”, “trader”, “data scientist”, etc. in Hong Kong. At ~US$5–8 CPC, a US$1,000–1,500 boost could generate ~150–300 qualified clicks to the event page.

• Sponsored posts in finance/tech communities (newsletters, Telegram/Discord/Slack groups, alumni networks). A few US$200–500 placements can reach several thousand relevant professionals.

• Short online info sessions + referral pushes, promoted via paid social and our existing finance/EA networks.

If Apart’s initial $2,000 ad grant proves sufficient on its own, we will redistribute this amount across the other budget heads (coworking, catering, fellowship support) to improve the overall experience for participants. 

iv) Volunteer honorarium: $500

We will task responsible members of our community with prior hackathon organizing experience to act as on-site facilitators for participating teams. This covers a small honorarium across the sprint as appreciation for their contributions.

B. Target: $22,000

Our target funding goal extends the minimum ask to also cover seats within our coworking space for the winning Hong Kong team through their Apart Fellowship, so they have a working base in Hong Kong instead of losing momentum once the sprint weekend ends. 

We are currently looking for a centrally-located physical space for our core team. We will add this top-up amount to our current budget to get a larger office space so that we can host the winning team alongside our core team and provide them with a proper “AI safety hub” vibe so that they feel motivated to keep working on their research alongside other community members doing similar work.

i) Coworking space seats for the Apart Fellowship team: $12,000

This is based on roughly 8 months of coworking access at $1,500 a month. We expect 8 months to be enough wiggle room for a team to complete the Apart Fellowship, though we are willing to cover the shortfall out of our existing budget in case it isn’t.