Call for Submission

Detailed submission guidelines for the OFC 2026 ML Challenge.

Important Dates

  • Competition launch with dataset and instructions release: Dec. 1, 2025
  • Submission deadline: Jan. 30, 2026
  • Finalists announced: Feb. 15, 2026
  • Live competition and winners announced: During OFC 2026 (Mar. 15–19)

Award

  • Invited papers from the ML Challenge winner to the IEEE/Optica Journal of Optical Communications and Networking(JOCN)
  • A dedicated repository for hosting all the ML Challenge results and the leaderboard

Submission Details

How to Participate

  1. Download the challenge data for the different challenge tracks indicated in each track.
  2. Run your model to obtain predictions for each task included in the challenge track
  3. [optional] Verify your model performance before submitting
    1. Create an account on kaggle platform.
    2. Upload your results on the Kaggle submission platform for the validation.
  4. To be eligible for the awards, you must submit a report to ofc.ml.challenge@gmail.com, describing the model you used to obtain the prediction, upload and public your model/runnable code on the github, and attach the predicted CSV file.

Evaluation Metrics

  • 60 credits: 20 credit per testcase results
  • 30 credits: 1-2 page report (overleaf template) in terms of novelty, innovations, and clarity
  • 10 credits: artifact for rerun the model

Questions?

If you have any questions about the submission process, please contact:

Email: ofc.ml.challenge@gmail.com or zehao.w@duke.edu