Nepal's delegation poses with the national flag at the International
Nepal's delegation poses with the national flag at the International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence (IOAI) in Astana, Kazakhstan, where student Sidant Chaturbedi won the country's first-ever medal at the competition, a bronze, with three teammates earning Honourable Mentions. Courtesy to IOAI 2026

KEY POINTS

  • Sidant Chaturbedi won bronze at the competition's third edition in Astana, Kazakhstan
  • Three other Nepali students received Honourable Mentions after a record 462 contestants from 103 countries took part
  • Nepal had competed in the Olympiad's two previous editions without winning any awards

Nepal has claimed its first-ever medal at the International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence, with student Sidant Chaturbedi taking bronze at this year's competition in Astana, Kazakhstan.

The event, held August 2-8, drew 462 contestants from 103 countries and territories, making it the largest edition since the Olympiad began. Three other Nepali students — Prasiddha Mainali, Pitambar Lamichhane and Aayush Yadav — earned Honourable Mentions. All four medalists are students at St Xavier's College in Maitighar, Kathmandu.

Contestants competed individually across two six-hour rounds, tackling machine-learning problems using Python and Jupyter Notebook, with medals awarded based on combined scores from both rounds.

Breaking A Two-Year Drought

This marks Nepal's third appearance at the Olympiad, having previously competed in Burgas, Bulgaria in 2024 and Beijing, China in 2025 without securing an award in either. "This year we were a little prepared, and the difference showed immediately," said Chandan Goopta, co-founder and co-chair of the Himalayan Computational, Linguistic and AI Olympiad in Nepal (HLON), the organization that ran the country's selection process. He said a broader, nationwide push to identify and train talented students had begun to pay off, and expects stronger results in coming years.

Nepal's four-student team was chosen through the National AI Olympiad in Nepal, a multistage competition open to secondary school students nationwide; Lamichhane and Mainali finished first and second, respectively, in this year's national round. Ahead of the international competition, the finalists trained with machine-learning specialists from Fusemachines, covering model training, ML fundamentals and applied problem-solving.

Organizers say the Olympiad is intended to build a long-term pipeline of AI talent in Nepal by introducing secondary school students to programming, artificial intelligence and machine learning early in their education.

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