(MENAFN) A team of Russian middle school students achieved outstanding success at the second International Olympiad on Artificial Intelligence (IOAI) held in China, securing a total of eight medals, including six golds, one silver, and one bronze. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko announced that Russia earned the highest number of gold medals among all competing countries.

The IOAI, inaugurated in 2024, is the first high-level academic AI competition for middle schoolers worldwide. This year’s event, held in Beijing from August 2 to 8, gathered 310 participants from 61 countries including the US, China, India, Sweden, Japan, Poland, Brazil, and the UAE.

In the team segment, students tackled challenges in a simulated smart factory, with the top ten teams advancing to test their solutions on actual factory equipment. Russia ranked second overall after making the top ten on the first day, with Poland taking first and third places.

The individual competition spanned areas such as machine learning, natural language processing, and computer vision. Gold medals were also awarded to students from Kazakhstan, Poland, India, Romania, Sweden, Vietnam, China, and Japan.

Chernyshenko credited the Russian students’ success to the country’s strong foundation in physics and mathematics education and continued investment in AI development, aligning with President Vladimir Putin’s goal for Russia to become a global leader in AI innovation and application.

The victory increases Russia’s total student medal tally in international contests this year to 29. Education Minister Sergey Kravtsov praised the achievement as a vital contribution to the nation’s economic future and digital advancement, expressing confidence that these young talents will drive scientific progress.

The next IOAI will take place in Abu Dhabi in 2026, hosted by the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence.

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