For the first time participating in the International Artificial Intelligence Olympiad (IAIO) 2026, a team of Vietnamese students secured two silver medals and one bronze.

The 2026 IAIO took place from February 23 to 27 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, bringing together 95 contestants from 24 countries recognized for their technological strength. Vietnam’s delegation consisted of four students selected through a rigorous national competition process.

The two silver medals were awarded to Pham Nguyen Dang Huy and Tran Thuan Hieu, both from Hanoi - Amsterdam High School for the Gifted. Le Ky Nam, a student at Newton Secondary and High School, earned the bronze medal. The fourth team member was Luong Tran Gia Bao from the High School for Gifted Students under the University of Science, Vietnam National University, Hanoi.

At the international round, contestants completed two individual exams, one theoretical and one practical problem-solving test. The problems required participants to apply advanced machine learning models to real-world scenarios, while also addressing complex aspects such as model fairness and ethical considerations in artificial intelligence.

The Vietnamese team was led by the Research Institute for Innovation and Quality Assurance (RIVA), under the scientific patronage of the AI4LIFE Institute at Hanoi University of Science and Technology.

According to the organizers, Vietnam will host the IAIO international round in 2027. This will mark the first time an international AI Olympiad is held in the country, a move expected to foster the development of Vietnam’s technology education ecosystem and expand opportunities for global academic exchange among local students.

The International Artificial Intelligence Olympiad is a global competition dedicated to artificial intelligence for high school students worldwide. It was founded by Professor John Stewart Shawe-Taylor, a distinguished scientist and leading expert in artificial intelligence. He serves as the UNESCO Chair in Artificial Intelligence at University College London and is currently Director of the International Research Centre on Artificial Intelligence (IRCAI) under the auspices of UNESCO at the Jozef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is also Professor of Computational Statistics and Machine Learning, Director of the Centre for Computational Statistics, and former Head of the Department of Computer Science at University College London.

IAIO is held annually, with its inaugural competition organized in 2024 in Saudi Arabia. Under the competition’s regulations, each participating country sends a team of four students selected through a stringent national process. The international round consists of two individual exams: one theoretical and one practical problem-solving test.

The competition maintains high academic standards while remaining closely connected to real-world applications. Contest problems require contestants to deploy advanced machine learning models to tackle practical challenges. Notably, the exam content also addresses deeper issues in AI, including questions of model fairness and ethical dimensions in artificial intelligence.

Du Lam