J. Schmid

IOAI 2026 in Astana

· 8 min read · Competitions

Contents
The German IOAI Team. Noah, Julius (me), Yaren and Niklas.
The German IOAI Team. Noah, Julius (me), Yaren and Niklas.

After a long phase of preparation (since February), this August, the German IOAI Team finally flew to Astana, Kazakhstan for the IOAI 2026.

The IOAI (International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence) is the newest science olympiad (besides IMO, IOI, …), which makes it all the more surprising that it has already grown to be the second biggest of all (IMO is the largest one).

I want to use this post for myself as a recap of the wonderful memories we created, but also for the interested: “hello mum :-)”.

Preparation#

As mentioned, the preparation of Team Germany started early. We held our first meeting in February. After that we met online (almost) every weekend to discuss tasks and our progress, and to sometimes drift off a little bit.

Overall, I would say that we were somewhere in the middle of the pack (about average) with our preparation. Our team leader didn’t lock us up in some kind of training camp for three months but we worked on all of the at-home tasks of this and last year.

Especially since it was Team Germany’s first time participating, it’s fair to say we weren’t certain we were preparing for the right things.

Spoiler: The preparation turned out to be quite ok ;).

How does the IOAI work?#

Before diving further into what we did when, a bit of basic background on the competition. The main competition of the Olympiad is the individual contest. In this contest (over two separate competition days) each team member completes tasks in machine learning on their own. This means that there is no such thing as a “team score” or “team leaderboard”. Every contestant is graded on their own.

And then there is the team challenge. It is less important. Teams are presented with a task in robotics and ML that they solve together using their combined skills.

Flight to Astana#

First things first… Our journey started at the airport in Stuttgart (lowest sum of distance for us). This meant that we got up at around 4:00-5:00 AM (depending on where we lived).

The trip to Astana turned out to be quite a fun one. In Istanbul (where we changed flights) some unnamed team members had fun tinkering around with an ordering terminal running vanilla Android (who would be so silly as to not put any restrictions in place 🙃?).

After eating overpriced chicken burgers and boarding our final plane, our motto was “Astana ahead”!

An ordering terminal running vanilla Android
Selfie of Team Germany smiling in their airplane seats during the flight

We arrived at around 3:00 AM local time, which meant that we could experience our first sunrise even before arriving at our dormitory.

The dormitory was located in the Kazakhstan National University of Sports.

Close-up of a digital wristwatch showing an early morning time inside a dim shuttle bus
Sunrise over an empty parking lot with the distant Astana skyline on the horizon
Two team members standing in front of the Kazakh National University of Sports, with the Olympic rings mounted on the building's glass facade

First few days#

First day in the Dorms (2nd of August)#

After getting a bit of sleep (bad sleep), we had our first breakfast (see image for some wonderful mushroom soup) at around 10.

Three team members smiling around a cafeteria table with bowls of soup, water bottles and juice cartons
Bowl of grey mushroom soup topped with croutons, next to a coffee cup, a juice carton and a bottle of water
Whoop app screen showing low sleep, recovery and strain scores
Four team members hunched over open laptops in a dorm room, focused on code

As for the rest of the day… we didn’t do too much. After breakfast, some of us went back to sleep, while others prepared for the individual competition.

Opening Ceremony and Team Challenge (3rd of August)#

And off we go! After better sleep, we started with breakfast (coffee!) and headed directly into the practice round. In the practice round, contestants were able to get more comfortable with the submission system / environment used during the competition.

We solved some example tasks and headed into the heart of Astana afterwards, where the opening ceremony took place. Our team, at least, was surprised that we got a police escort!

Laptop screen showing terminal output of lscpu with an Intel Core i7-8565U CPU and other hardware specs
Row of pictogram signs above a bus window: hot food, chips and drinks crossed out; only bottled water allowed

A very welcome surprise was the large selection of Kazakh food waiting for us. But there were downsides. Because the Kazakh President was officially opening the Olympiad, we had to sit through a period of two hours (!) during which no one was allowed to enter or leave the building (security measures).

A few speeches later, we headed back to the campus…

Team Challenge#

We had lunch and got ready for the Team Challenge. Our team had not prepared for the Team Challenge. This was due to a number of technical problems when using the environment at home (aside from it not being as important).

After a few hours of hardcore concentration (see image), we submitted our “thing” (“solution” feels like too big of a word here).

Three team members leaning in around a laptop showing the IOAI 2026 logo, deep in concentration during the team challenge

I think the sheer fact that there were a number of people playing cookie clicker tells you most of what you need to know.

Because teams had internet access during this challenge, the challenge became more of a “who doesn’t have 2FA enabled on their Claude Pro account” than a “robotics machine learning challenge”. Because of this, a number of complaints were made. The organizer team had to react to the complaints. And they did.

Instead of sending the top 10 performing teams to the finals, they just randomly selected 10 teams to go.

Competition Day 1 (4th of August)#

But that was the team challenge. The next day was (individual) competition day. The first of two.

After breakfast and a 1-hour delay (technical issues), the competition started. In total we had about 7 hours to work on the tasks. Even though this may seem like a lot… it is actually just enough time to solve the tasks properly.

Compared to last year’s tasks, these felt just a bit harder. In the end, each of us managed to submit something (good), which was not too common on competition day 1. Just for some reference: about 200 people got a score of 0.0 (no points at all).

Rows of individual desks with contestants working at laptops in front of a large IOAI Astana 2026 banner

Horse meat, a big mosque and a lot of rain (5th of August)#

In between all of the hard work we also had some free time. On Wednesday, for example. So we decided to head into Astana and eat some proper Kazakh food.

We ate the famous national dish (containing horse meat) and pizza, which we only tried out of interest to see how good it was. Judge for yourself.

Team Germany sitting around a long white table in a small Astana restaurant, smiling at the camera
Table crowded with Kazakh dishes: horse meat, dumplings, soup and a margherita pizza
The Grand Mosque of Astana seen from the plaza, with a blue central dome and four tall white minarets
Selfie of three team members in rain jackets under heavy rain, one holding a pink umbrella

When we came back, we were surprised by the “Ethno day” the IOAI organized for us. We experienced typical Kazakh music, dances and some nice drinks!

Final Competition Day (6th of August)#

And then the final competition day started. After breakfast, the tension started to rise. We all wanted to improve our scores.

6 hours of non-stop focus later, we finished. With good results. Every team member was able to improve their scores and rank better than before.

With no break and definitely too little time to talk about the tasks, we headed to Comic Con. Every contestant got a stylish mask before entering.

A crowd of IOAI contestants outside the Comic Con venue, most wearing white plastic masks pushed up onto their foreheads
Selfie of three team members inside a dark event hall wearing white Stormtrooper-style masks tilted up
A hexacopter delivery drone with a yellow package flying past the curved roof of a building against a blue sky

This was very nice for two reasons:

  1. We were done with the competition. This gave us time to relax.
  2. We had some spare time to calculate what ranks each of us was probably going to get.

In the evening we watched a movie with our team leader and surprised Noah, whose 19th birthday it was, with a cake!

Ceremony and final evening (7th of August)#

On Friday, we finally got some good sleep (more than 7h). This is why we intentionally skipped breakfast and ate instant ramen instead.

A paper cup of instant ramen held over a table, with two plastic forks sticking out
Nutrition label on the ramen cup with a California Prop 65 cancer warning highlighted at the bottom

Other than that, the day was pretty unspectacular.

In the evening, though, the award ceremony took place. The images speak for themselves. We got 3 x bronze medals and one honorable mention.

Team Germany holding up a German flag, three bronze medals and an honorable mention certificate in front of the IOAI Astana 2026 backdrop
Selfie of two team members pretending to bite their bronze medals in the venue

Because this was the last evening, we took the chance to meet up with the other teams and have some fun.

Astana but without the rain (8th of August)#

This was our last day. We took the chance to visit Astana one last time, this time in sunny weather.

One important shout-out… our amazing guide Ali (who wasn’t our liaison, but who we ended up spending a lot of time with) showed us around the nicest places. Thank you!

Here are some nice images of Astana (with team Germany)…

Group selfie of five people on a viewing platform, with the Ishim river and the Astana skyline in the background
Team Germany standing in front of the Bayterek monument, a white lattice tower topped with a golden sphere
A white mosque with a golden central dome and four slim white minarets, surrounded by trees
View from an elevated metro train of Astana's modern high-rise skyline and a long strip of green park below
Group mirror selfie of six friends posing in front of a bar wall in Astana

Later that day we packed our stuff. It was time to say goodbye. But before that, we ordered some food on Yandex Go. None of our stomachs will forget that food. Our team leader’s stomach especially. Let’s just say the mushrooms fought back.

Our flight from Astana was scheduled for around 2:00 am. This meant we had time between dinner and leaving the dorms.

We used the time to pack our last things and collect some leftover merch.

Farewell#

This part is bittersweet. Reflecting on the week really reminded me of the amazing people from all the different countries whom we had the pleasure of meeting.

The Slovak presentation of Kofola (a Czechoslovak cola), conversations with members of team Jamaica / Sweden / Netherlands / Japan / Lebanon / … are things none of us will forget.

Selfie of four IOAI contestants in matching contest shirts and lanyards in the venue lobby
Large group photo of around twenty-five contestants from many different countries posing together in a common room, with a German flag in the middle
Portrait of Ali laughing in the dormitory doorway at night, backpack over one shoulder
A hand holding a fan of six Polaroid photos of Team Germany taken in front of an IOAI backdrop
Group selfie of seven contestants from different countries pressed together in a dorm hallway, smiling on the last evening
Selfie of Team Germany with their luggage at the Turkish Airlines check-in counters at Astana airport

Thank you IOAI 2026!

… team Germany ‘26 out.