The IOAI 2026 International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence opened in Astana

The third International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence, IOAI 2026, kicked off in Astana. School teams from dozens of countries spend several days solving problems in machine learning, computer vision and data processing — not multiple-choice tests but full engineering tasks close to real work.

For Kazakhstan the event is a status marker: the country hosts the top world league of school AI competition for the first time, and the Kazakhstani team enters its home tournament as one of the favorites after gold at previous contests. Home walls help: the olympiad will spur schoolkids' interest in AI careers more powerfully than any university ad campaign.

The observation for business to take away: countries now compete not only in raw materials but in the quality of school-level AI training. The talent pipeline that starts at school olympiads ends up on the labor market a few years later. Companies already scouting at such events — with prizes, internships, mentoring — are buying future specialists at a price that will not exist in five years.