Nepal Wins First-Ever Medal at International AI Olympiad 2026 in Astana
15th August 2026, Kathmandu
Nepal makes history at the 2026 International Olympiad in AI in Astana, securing its first-ever bronze medal and three honourable mentions for its four-student delegation.
Nepal Wins First-Ever Medal
Nepal has won its first medal at the International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence (IOAI), with Sidant Chaturbedi taking a bronze medal at the Olympiad’s third edition, held in Astana, Kazakhstan, from 2 to 8 August 2026.
Three further members of the delegation, Prasiddha Mainali, Pitambar Lamichhane and Aayush Yadav, each received an Honourable Mention, meaning all four Nepali contestants returned home recognised. All four are students of St. Xavier’s College, Maitighar, Kathmandu.
The Olympiad was hosted by the Competitive Programming Federation of Kazakhstan and drew 462 contestants from 103 delegations, making it the largest edition to date. Contestants competed individually across two six-hour rounds, on 4 and 6 August, working in Python and Jupyter Notebook on machine learning problems set by an international scientific committee. Medals were decided on the combined score from those two days.
Nepal has taken part in all three editions of the Olympiad — Burgas, Bulgaria in 2024 and Beijing, China in 2025 — and returned from both without an award.
“In the first two editions we won nothing, and the honest reason is that we went in unprepared,” said Chandan Goopta, Co-Founder and Co-Chair of HLON. “This year we were a little prepared, and the difference showed immediately. With proper preparation and a Nepal-wide campaign to find and train students, I believe we can achieve far better results in the years ahead.”
The team was selected through the National AI Olympiad in Nepal (NAION), a multistage national competition organised by HLON — the Himalayan Computational, Linguistic and AI Olympiad in Nepal — and open to secondary school students across the country. Lamichhane placed first and Mainali second in the 2026 national round.
The delegation was led by Team Leader Aayush Adhikari, who oversaw the contestants’ technical preparation and accompanied the team to Astana. Programme Coordinator Pranshu Joshi managed the national selection rounds and the logistics of the delegation’s participation, and Chandan Goopta travelled as an observer. Finalists received preparation from a team of experts at Fusemachines, led by Rojesh M. Shikhrakar, covering the machine learning foundations, model training, and applied problem-solving the Olympiad demands.
“Although the time was tight, we were able to train the students decently,” said Aayush Adhikari. “For the coming years, we are planning to do more intensive training so that our students can achieve much better results.”
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“For the first time, Nepal is on the board at the AI Olympiad — and not with one result, but with all four of our students recognised,” said Dr. Bal Krishna Bal, Co-Founder and Co-Chair of HLON and Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, School of Engineering, Kathmandu University. “That is not luck. It is what happens when talented young people are found early, taught properly, and given the chance to test themselves against the best in the world.”
HLON says the significance of the result extends well beyond the medal table.
“This Olympiad is going to add a lot of value. It is going to help in generating AI professionals in Nepal, as students will be learning programming, AI, and machine learning skills from their early years,” said Chandan Goopta. “This also fulfills the Nepal government’s larger vision of generating AI professionals.”
Nepal’s participation was supported in part by financial aid from the IOAI, which covered half of the delegation’s registration fee and travel costs for three delegation members.
The next cycle of the National AI Olympiad will open later this year, under the BRAIN
Foundation, which is assuming legal and financial responsibility for Nepal’s AI and Linguistics Olympiad programmes.
ABOUT HLON
The Himalayan Computational, Linguistic and AI Olympiad in Nepal (HLON) organises Nepal’s National AI Olympiad (NAION) and National Linguistics Olympiad, and selects, prepares and sends the national delegations that represent Nepal at international competitions. HLON was co-founded by Dr. Bal Krishna Bal and Chandan Goopta.
ABOUT THE IOAI
The International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence is the newest of the International Science Olympiads, first held in Burgas, Bulgaria, in 2024. It is open to secondary school students under the age of 20 who qualify through national olympiads in their own countries.
For more: Nepal Wins First-Ever Medal
