The III International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence (IOAI 2026), held from August 2 to 8, has concluded in Astana. A total of 466 high school students from 108 countries and territories took part in the competition. The Israeli national team, making its debut at the tournament, won one bronze medal and two honorable mentions.
The winners of the individual standings were Artem Gorokhov from Russia in first place, Dauzhan Beketov from Kazakhstan in second place, and Shao Zixi from China in third place. In total, the organizing committee awarded 37 gold, 73 silver, and 110 bronze medals, as well as 62 honorable mentions. The individual round consisted of two six-hour sessions during which participants solved six problems in machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, and multimodal systems.
The Israeli national team consisted of four high school students. The bronze medal was won by Ido Kfir, a 12th-grade student at the Ginzburg Education Center in Yavne. Honorable mentions were awarded to Daniel Vorobiev, an 11th-grade student from the Hadassah Neurim Youth Village, and Itai Karni, an 11th-grade student from the Ramon School in Hod Hasharon. The fourth team member was Nir Afek, an 11th-grade student at the Engineering High School in Herzliya.
In addition to individual competitions, the Olympiad program included the Team Challenge, where participants developed artificial intelligence solutions for humanoid robots. First place in the team competition was taken by Poland's first team, second place went to Russia's first team, and Poland's second team rounded out the top three.
The preparation of the Israeli national team was carried out by Bar-Ilan University. The academic leadership of the team was headed by Dr. Avshalom Elmalech, while Oren Ganon served as the head coach. Delegation chaperones included team coordinator Ronit Stein and Yigal Dor, head of the Department for Gifted Students at the Israeli Ministry of Education.
According to the Israeli Ministry of Education, including the performance at IOAI 2026, Israeli high school teams in natural and exact sciences won a total of 20 medals at international olympiads in the summer of 2026. The International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence has been held since 2024: the first took place in Burgas, Bulgaria; the second in Beijing; and the third was hosted by Kazakhstan. In 2027, the competition will take place in Singapore.
Source: newsru.co.il
