Why it matters
Frames token cost as a product-design constraint rather than an afterthought — teams are scored on building agents that are both cheap to run and worth paying for.
The tokenmaxxing angle
One judged track is literally 'Cost of Intelligence' (optimize AI efficiency) set against a 'Value of Intelligence' track (willingness-to-pay) — a hackathon-scale test of token cost versus output value.
From the organizers
Event tagline reads 'Every AI product runs on tokens. Every token has a price.'; teams of 1-2 get Snowflake Cortex Agents credits, with prizes of $600/$500/$400.