Four of the world’s busiest AI calendars sit within five hours’ flying time of each other, and nobody keeps them in one place.This page does: the conferences, summits, expos, hackathons and meetups running in Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo and Seoul, each checked against the organiser’s own listing and each carrying a line on who it is actually for. The list Metis AI keeps for its own clients.
27 events in the next 90 days · 4 more on the horizon · last updated 5 September 2026
Each event shows its own local time — HKT (UTC+8) in Hong Kong; SGT (UTC+8) in Singapore; JST (UTC+9) in Tokyo; KST (UTC+9) in Seoul.
Tenity's annual agentic-AI hackathon built around real fintech problem statements from banking, insurance and digital-asset partners, backed this edition by Ripple and Julius Baer with S$10,000 in prizes.
Who it’s for: Builders and students who want to ship a working agent over a weekend, not sit through keynotes. Free and hands-on — worth watching if you're hiring junior AI engineering talent; skip it if you're after polished thought leadership.
Ito International Research Center, University of Tokyo, Hongo, Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo
Japan's largest generative-AI implementation conference, endorsed by the Japan Deep Learning Association and now in its third year, themed this edition around enterprise implementation strategy for the AI-agent era.
Who it’s for: Japanese-first, no interpretation — a solid pulse-check on enterprise generative-AI adoption in Japan for anyone with working Japanese, less useful for an English-only visitor.
ConferenceFree + paid tiersTokyoVerified 31 Aug
Organised by Generative AI Conf Executive Committee, supported by JDLA
A one-day media-hosted conference gathering executives from global AI firms and Korean industry to discuss AI market trends, policy direction and cross-border cooperation.
Who it’s for: A one-day, media-run conference: good for a fast read on Korean policy direction and market mood, thin on implementation detail.
Seoul city government's flagship global startup festival, themed 'AI Changes Everything' this year, combining tech showcases, investor meetups and keynotes on AI's impact across industries.
Who it’s for: Founders, investors and corporate venture teams. Free and city-run, so signal-to-noise varies — go for the meetings, not the main stage.
A community meetup built around the Agentic AI Foundation ecosystem, where contributors to AI-agent open-source projects show what they're building; the first edition in June drew 174 attendees, well over its planned capacity.
Who it’s for: Japanese-first community meetup, no interpretation — a good regular stop for a hands-on agent developer already comfortable working in Japanese; skip it if you need English.
The Agentic AI Foundation's Asia-Pacific flagship developer conference for the open agentic-AI ecosystem, bringing together contributors and enterprises building on the Model Context Protocol and related agent-system standards.
Who it’s for: The one Tokyo event a technical leader building on agent standards should not miss. English-language, Linux Foundation-run, and much closer to the standards work than to marketing.
ConferencePrice TBCTokyoVerified 31 Aug
Organised by Agentic AI Foundation / Linux Foundation
Fourth edition of this fintech expo and awards show, drawing 1,000+ senior decision-makers with AI-in-finance as one of the headline agenda tracks alongside payments, blockchain and regtech, plus AI vendor exhibitors on the floor.
Who it’s for: Fintech commercial teams. AI is one track among payments and regtech, so it earns a day only if financial services is your sector.
Ubie Office, Nihonbashi Life Science Building, Chuo Ward, Tokyo
A small, business-side (non-engineer) hackathon from the Loglass/LayerX/Ubie-founded AI Ops Community, focused on using AI slash commands to automate everyday internal operations rather than software engineering per se.
Who it’s for: Business-side operators, explicitly not engineers — the rare hands-on session aimed at internal operations rather than software. Japanese-language.
HackathonPrice TBCTokyoVerified 31 Aug
Organised by AI Ops Community (Loglass, LayerX, Ubie)
Inaugural defence-tech hackathon putting agentic AI and autonomous systems to work on real security problems (drone defence, maritime security, electronic warfare), with winners funnelled into NUS's Defence Tech Venture Lab for incubation.
Who it’s for: Deep-tech founders and engineers with a security angle, plus anyone tracking where defence money is moving in the region. Not a general AI event.
HackathonPrice TBCSingaporeVerified 31 Aug
Organised by NUS Enterprise, TUM Venture Labs, European Defense Tech Hub
A five-day international academic conference on AI agents for scientific research, with parallel oral tracks, poster sessions, a hackathon and an AI art competition, backed by Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT.
Who it’s for: Researchers and R&D leads. Five days in an academic format — corporate attendees should cherry-pick a day rather than commit the week.
ConferencePaidSeoulVerified 31 Aug
Organised by Korean Society for Practical AI (AI Friends), with the Korean Science AI Forum
Sands Expo & Convention Centre, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore
The data/AI conference track inside the broader Tech Week Singapore trade show, pulling in senior data and AI buyers for two days of theatre sessions on AI strategy and machine learning, with a single pass covering the co-located Cloud & AI Infrastructure and DevOps Live tracks too.
Who it’s for: Data and AI buyers with budget. One pass covering the co-located cloud and DevOps tracks is most of the value; the theatre sessions are vendor-led.
Seoul's third annual smart-city expo, built this year around physical AI — AI running inside autonomous robots, transit systems and public infrastructure rather than software demos on a slide — with exhibitions, forums and the Seoul Smart City Prize ceremony.
Who it’s for: Urban planners, civic-tech and robotics-adjacent people who want to see deployed physical AI at city scale. Free registration, but skip it if you're after enterprise software or LLM-application content — that's not what's on the floor.
The fifth edition of an established industrial-AI conference series (four prior years at Stanford, then Hanoi in 2025), themed this year on industrial AI sovereignty and run by a cross-industry coalition rather than a generic conference broker.
Who it’s for: An unusually credible industrial/enterprise-AI conference for the price point — worth it for anyone working AI into manufacturing, finance or infrastructure rather than pure software; skip it if your interest is consumer or research AI.
City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon Tong
An inaugural academic conference bringing together AI researchers, policymakers and social scientists to examine how large language models are reshaping research methods and governance, co-run by CityU, Oxford and Peking University.
Who it’s for: Policy people, researchers and anyone whose work touches AI governance. Academic in register — read the programme before paying.
ConferencePaidHong KongVerified 31 Aug
Organised by Talking to Machines (CityU Computational Social Sciences Lab / Oxford Nuffield / Peking University)
A World Bank-organised policy summit with Korea's finance and science ministries on using AI and digital tools to drive jobs and productivity in developing economies; most sessions are invitation-only with select sessions livestreamed.
Who it’s for: Policy and development-finance professionals. Largely invitation-only, so for most people this is a livestream to watch rather than a trip to book.
SummitPrice TBCSeoulVerified 31 Aug
Organised by World Bank Group, with Korea's Ministry of Economy and Finance and Ministry of Science and ICT
A large multi-show B2B exhibition (about 700 exhibitors, 31,000 visitors) where the co-located Japan DX & AX Week puts AI-driven transformation, automation and enterprise AI tooling alongside broader IT/digital-marketing/e-commerce exhibits.
Who it’s for: Enterprise buyers doing vendor discovery at scale. Free entry, around seven hundred exhibitors, and mostly Japanese-language at booth level — bring a colleague who reads Japanese.
An invite-only closed-door forum where roughly 30 senior data and technology leaders compare notes on AI-first strategy, governance and real-world execution.
Who it’s for: Data and technology chiefs only — roughly thirty seats, invitation-only. Worth asking for an invitation if that is your title, and nothing to do here if it is not.
Singapore's flagship startup and deep-tech week, with AI, robotics and quantum as core main-stage themes, 400+ exhibiting startups and the SLINGSHOT pitch competition running alongside — broader than pure AI but consistently AI-heavy in programming.
Who it’s for: Founders and corporate innovation teams. Broader than AI, but the deep-tech programming and the SLINGSHOT pitches are where the region's next AI companies surface.
Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre + multiple venues
Asia's flagship fintech festival, expecting 45,000+ attendees and dedicated AI in Finance, AI and DeepTech, and AI in GBA forums alongside the broader startup and investment programme.
Who it’s for: The one week Hong Kong finance clears its calendar for. Dedicated AI-in-finance forums, though the corridor conversations matter more than the stages.
ExpoPaidHong KongVerified 31 Aug
Organised by Finoverse, with HKMA, SFC, Insurance Authority, InvestHK and other government co-organisers
An AI+IoT trade show pairing Korean AI hardware and platform vendors with real-world deployment case studies across industry, the public sector and daily life — smaller and more B2B-technical than the flagship AI Expo Korea show.
Who it’s for: Industrial and product engineers scouting AI/IoT integration vendors. Free with online pre-registration, so a walk-through is worth it even without a meeting booked; students are restricted to the final day.
Second annual one-day summit built specifically for banking and financial-services executives, focused on moving from AI experimentation to production — agentic AI, automation and AI governance, with a majority-director-level attendee base.
Who it’s for: Banking and insurance executives past the pilot stage. Small, senior and director-heavy — the closest thing in the region to a peer group on AI actually in production.
RX Japan's autumn AI/deep-tech trade expo, run as seven concurrent shows covering generative and enterprise AI, humanoid robots, blockchain, quantum computing and industrial XR, aimed at enterprise buyers and solution vendors.
Who it’s for: Enterprise buyers and anyone benchmarking Japanese AI and robotics vendors. Free, enormous, and best attacked with a shortlist rather than a map.
Fourth edition of SMU's cross-border student hackathon, pairing 120 Singaporean and Indian participants into mixed teams equipped with AI tools to tackle fintech, sustainability and social-innovation challenges for S$88,000 in prizes.
Who it’s for: Students and university partners. Relevant to corporates as a recruiting and CSR touchpoint, not as an attendee event.
HackathonPrice TBCSingaporeVerified 31 Aug
Organised by SMU Institute of Innovation & Entrepreneurship, with TiE Singapore and AICTE
The region's largest fintech gathering, with a dedicated 'Frontier Stage' on AI, cloud and digital-banking transformation plus an 'Intelligent Financial Systems' theme running across multiple stages — the biggest single draw for banking/finance executives on the SG calendar.
Who it’s for: If you work in financial services anywhere in Asia, this is the fixture. Enormous — plan the meetings before you plan the sessions.
ConferencePrice TBCSingaporeVerified 31 Aug
Organised by Elevandi, with Monetary Authority of Singapore
The 9th edition of this executive summit on digital, data and AI leadership, themed around transforming business with and beyond AI, drawing speakers from banks and major HK corporates.
Who it’s for: Digital and data leaders at Hong Kong corporates and banks. Ninth edition, so the speaker quality is predictable and the peer list is the actual draw.
Korea's largest fintech showcase, themed 'Beyond Finance, Into the Future' for 2026, with a strong agentic-AI and AI-governance program alongside digital assets and financial security tracks.
Who it’s for: Financial services professionals with a Korea interest. The free tier makes the exhibition worth a day even if the paid programme is not for you.
ExpoFree + paid tiersSeoulVerified 31 Aug
Organised by Financial Services Commission (Korea), with the Global Financial Technology Network
The Economist Group's third annual Asia-Pacific executive conference on moving AI from pilot to production at scale, capped near 500 senior attendees.
Who it’s for: Enterprise leaders already past the pilot stage and wrestling with governance and ROI at scale — not a beginner's AI event. Economist-brand pricing and a hard attendee cap mean this skews senior; send someone who owns a budget, not an analyst.
ConferencePaidSingaporeVerified 31 Aug
Organised by Economist Enterprise (The Economist Group)
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On the horizon
Confirmed, but more than 90 days out. Worth diarising now if travel or budget approval is involved.
Metis AI advises Hong Kong professionals and their teams on putting AI to work — which tools, which workflows, and which of this calendar is genuinely worth a Tuesday evening. The list is a by-product of that advisory work, kept current because clients keep asking for it.
If the harder question is what to actually do with AI inside your own role, that is a conversation rather than a conference.
