Korean Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence (KOAI)

The Korean Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence (KOAI) is the domestic official competition held to select the Korean student delegation to the International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence (IOAI). It evaluates understanding and problem-solving in artificial intelligence overall — machine learning, deep learning, and more — and the selected national team participates in the annual IOAI finals to compete with students from around the world.

Korean Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence

The Korean Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence (KOAI) is the domestic official AI olympiad that selects the Korean national team dispatched to the International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence (IOAI). As the only domestic competition to receive IOAI-authorized national certification, middle- and high-school students from across the country compete in theoretical knowledge and practical problem-solving in artificial intelligence.

Purpose

National Team Selection
Selects Korea's delegation to the annual IOAI finals.
Discovering and Developing AI Talent
Discovers young students with potential in core AI fields such as machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, and computer vision.
Expanding the Basis for International Exchange
Expands the domestic AI ecosystem through linkage with regional competitions such as the Asia-Pacific (APOAI) Olympiad and with the global community.

Competition Structure

KOAI generally proceeds in the following stages.
  1. Preliminary Round — Conducted nationwide, evaluating AI fundamentals along with machine-learning and deep-learning practice tasks.
  2. Final Round — A hands-on round in which participants design, train, and submit models within a given time, using real datasets in a GPU environment.
  3. National Team Selection and Camp — Top finishers from the Final Round undergo intensive training, after which the final delegation is confirmed.

Evaluated Areas

  • Supervised learning (regression and classification), ensembles, deep-learning fundamentals
  • Natural language processing (NLP) and large language model (LLM) use
  • Computer vision (CV) and image/video generation models
  • Unsupervised learning, reinforcement learning, model optimization, and hyperparameter tuning
  • AI ethics and responsible use

Eligibility

Middle- and high-school students of Republic of Korea nationality (subject to the age requirements for IOAI finals dispatch).
Programming experience (Python) and basic mathematics and statistics knowledge are recommended.