Filipino teens win 4 medals in int’l AI Olympiad
MANILA, Philippines — All four members of the Philippines’ first delegation to the International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence (IOAI) won medals in Astana, Kazakhstan, this August, bringing home one silver and three bronze medals.
Theo Lorenzo T. Bustamante of Philippine Science High School–Calabarzon Region Campus won silver, while Ellison Matthew S. Ang of Philippine Science High School–Main Campus, Juan Mateo J. Desuasido of Brent International School Manila and Jhareign S. Solidum of University of Mindanao Ilang High School each won bronze.
The four-member team competed against 466 high school students from 108 countries and territories, giving the Philippines a 100 percent medal rate in its IOAI debut.
Bustamante ranked 80th overall, placing among the top 17 percent of competitors. The Philippines was also among 11 of 18 countries making their IOAI debut in 2026 that won at least one silver medal.
Overall, the competition awarded 37 gold, 73 silver and 110 bronze medals.
Now in its third year, the IOAI tests students in machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing and multimodal processing.
The weeklong competition was officially opened by Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and featured international artificial intelligence experts and technology leaders, including Kai-Fu Lee. It was the first event held at the newly constructed facilities of the Kazakhstan National University of Sports.
The Philippine delegation was selected, trained and managed by International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence Philippines (IOAI PH), hosted by the Ateneo Business Insights Laboratory for Development (BUILD) under the John Gokongwei School of Management of Ateneo de Manila University.
Students qualified through a merit-based national screening process, with participation offered free of charge.
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Over 10 months, Ateneo BUILD provided the team with cloud testing infrastructure and proctoring environments and conducted expert-led boot camps on machine learning theory, computer vision, natural language processing, audio processing and VRAM constraint optimization.
“A 100% medal rate on our global debut proves that Philippine talent can immediately compete at the highest level of international AI,” IOAI PH executive director and team leader Martin Gomez said.
“Outranking competitors from traditional global STEM powerhouses in our very first year establishes a baseline for what our students can accomplish with structured training, corporate backing, and national support,” Gomez added.
Held under the patronage of UNESCO, the IOAI was hosted by the Kazakhstan Competitive Programming Federation with support from Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development and Ministry of Education.
Singapore will host the fourth IOAI in 2027. /das
