Published on: 2026-08-07
Source: Government of the Russian Federation –
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The team from Russia won 8 medals – 7 gold and 1 bronze – at International Artificial Intelligence Olympiad (IOAI) among high school students, which took place in Kazakhstan from August 2 to 7. A member of the Russian team – Artyom Gorokhov – also became the absolute winner of the IOAI. The Olympiad is held for the third time, and every year the national team becomes the champion. The team was traditionally prepared by experts from the Central University and the Alliance in the field of artificial intelligence.
The Russian team became the absolute leader, with the Chinese team in second place and the Polish team in third.
Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Chernyshenko congratulated the medalists, thanked their teachers and mentors for their work, and the parents for supporting the children.
“Congratulations to our team on a brilliant performance and a dazzling triumph! Team Russia became the best among representatives from over 100 countries. Our medalists demonstrated world-class skill. It is especially significant that the awards were received in hospitable Kazakhstan – the importance of humanitarian ties with it, especially in education, is emphasized by President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. I would note that today artificial intelligence has become a reliable assistant to humans – and it is precisely talents like the winners and prize-winners of the olympiad who are to advance technology. On its part, the Government will continue to create conditions for youth to realize themselves in this field thanks to the measures of the national projects “Youth and Children” and “Data Economy and Digital Transformation of the State,” Dmitry Chernyshenko said.
Russian Minister of Education Sergey Kravtsov noted that competing against the strongest students from more than 100 countries is a serious challenge and a great honor.
“Congratulations to our school students on their confident performance at the III International Artificial Intelligence Olympiad in Kazakhstan! High school students, as they did a year ago, confirmed their status as one of the strongest teams in the world, winning 8 medals, including 7 of the highest distinction. It is in such intense and fair competition that true talents are revealed: here, it is not enough just to know the theory – you have to think quickly, find unconventional solutions, and not be afraid of difficult problems. The ability to work with AI today is becoming an essential skill. It is about critical thinking, which makes a person stronger than any technology. These are the very skills you demonstrate at the Olympiad; these will become your main advantage in the future – in science, in engineering, in any profession where you need to create something new,” said Sergey Kravtsov.
Medals at the International Olympiad in AI were awarded to the winners and prizewinners of the All-Russian Olympiad in AI, the Asia-Pacific Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence (The Asia-Pacific Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence – APOAI), the international AI competition AI Challenge, and other prestigious Russian and international olympiads and competitions in the field of AI.
Gold medalists:
● Artyom Gorokhov is a 10th grade student at the State Budgetary Educational Institution of Additional Education “Presidential Physics and Mathematics Lyceum No. 239”, Saint Petersburg. Artyom also became the absolute winner of IOAI 2026;
● Mikhail Vershinin – 11th grade student, MAOU “Lyceum No. 22 ‘Hope of Siberia’”, Novosibirsk city;
● Elisey Kirpichenko – 11th grade student, State Budgetary Educational Institution School No. 667, Saint Petersburg;
● Kirill Labzin – 11th grade student, Presidential Lyceum “Sirius”, Sirius city;
● Alexander Povarov – an 11th-grade student at the non-state autonomous educational institution “Letovo School”, Moscow;
● Nikita Pudovkin – a 10th-grade student, Lyceum No. 8, Volgograd;
● Semyon Rodionov – 11th grade student, MAOU “Lyceum No. 22 ‘Hope of Siberia'”, Novosibirsk.
Bronze medal winner:
● Alexey Kolegov – 11th grade student, OANO OSH CPM, Izhevsk.
In the final, the Russian team competed with 465 schoolchildren from 105 countries. This is a record number of countries in the entire history of the olympiad. The number of participants this year exceeds last year’s by 64%. IOAI has moved to second place in the ranking of world olympiads by number of participants, with the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) holding first place.
The IOAI final took place over 2 days and consisted of 2 individual rounds. Each round lasted 6 hours and included 3 problems.
Participants were also trained by experts from the Central University and Alliance companies in the field of AI, who prepared the winners of the International Artificial Intelligence Olympiad in 2024 and 2025. Leading specialists in artificial intelligence from Russian and international organizations also joined the training:
● Alexander Gushchin – academic lead of the olympiad direction in artificial intelligence at the Central University, Kaggle Competitions Grandmaster;
● Tatyana Gainceva – academic supervisor of DLS, PhD candidate at Queen Mary University of London;
● Sergey Arefyev – coach of the student teams of the Central University in the AI olympiad direction, Kaggle Competitions Grandmaster;
● Georgy Aparin – AI Researcher at Huawei’s Moscow office;
● Ilseyar Alimova – Lead Machine Learning Engineer at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology;
● Ilya Osokin – lead engineer of the Intelligent Robotics Technologies Laboratory, academic supervisor of the master’s program “Robotics and Artificial Intelligence” at MIPT;
● Dmitry Kurtsev – ML Engineer at RnD Sber Devices, lecturer at the Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics of Lomonosov Moscow State University and at the Central University;
● Nina Konovalova – head of the Deep Learning School, PhD candidate at Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI);
● Shamil Chankaev – AI Researcher at the Central University, PhD from Moscow State University.
Following the results of the International Artificial Intelligence Olympiad, it was announced that in 2027 the Central University, together with the Artificial Intelligence Alliance, will hold in Russia Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Olympiad.
APOAI is a young but rapidly developing international olympiad created to find and support talented school students interested in artificial intelligence. The competition is based on the approaches of the International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence: participants solve problems related to machine learning, data analysis, and practical applications of AI. The olympiad is held annually, and the right to host it is passed between countries and territories of the region. In 2026, China organized the first APOAI.
The Asia-Pacific Olympiad will be held in April 2027 in a hybrid format: in Russia and at official venues in the participating countries. In addition to the competition program, the organizers will prepare educational events for schoolchildren and team leaders.
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