INTERNATIONAL JUNIOR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE OLYMPIAD 2026
IJAIO was created with this vision at its core. Building upon SIMCC’s long-standing commitment to nurturing higher-order thinking and global citizenship, IJAIO integrates computational thinking with AI thinking, placing strong emphasis on ethics, fairness, safety, and human-centred decision-making. It is designed to be age-appropriate, accessible, and internationally benchmarked for students from Grades 1 to 12, regardless of prior coding experience.
IJAIO transitions from recognition and play into design, critique, and experimentation with AI systems.
1. Deeper AI Literacy
Exposure to machine learning pipelines, datasets, and the concept of model evaluation. Students explore symbolic vs statistical AI, precision vs recall, and real-world failure cases.
2. Critical Thinking Foundations–
Practice in debating AI ethics, fairness, governance, and global impact (jobs, sustainability, digital divide,surveillance). Learn to spot and analyse bias in datasets, misinformation, and fairness trade offs.
3. Practical Experimentation–
Engage in pseudo-code and simple Python tasks (train/test split, confusion matrices, threshold classification). Progress to hands-on AI coding with PyTorch, CNNs, and NLP in upper secondary.
4. Pathway to Pre-Tertiary AI Competitions
IJAIO serves as the foundation for advanced Olympiads:
• National Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence (NOAI, Singapore)- Secondary students who excel in NJAIO can move to NOAI, where tasks involve real world AI challenges (vision, NLP, reinforcement learning).- Provides deeper exposure to research-style tasks and project-based AI innovation.
• International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence (IOAI)- Outstanding NOAI participants may qualify for IOAI.- IOAI brings together the best global secondary students to solve cutting-edge AI problems— from algorithmic fairness to multi-modal AI.- This global stage inspires students to pursue AI research, university-level studies, and careers in AI/tech innovation.
5. Career & Higher Education Readiness–
Builds a portfolio of practical AI projects (from simple rule classifiers to CNN/NLP tasks). Positions students strongly for future AI-related courses and scholarships. Encourages entrepreneurial thinking about how AI can support the UN SDGs (e.g., food waste, health, environment)
No marks are deducted for incorrect answers.
Lower Primary / Grades 1 to 3 (45 minutes)
20 MCQ questions [60]
2 structured questions [40]
Total 100 marks
Upper Primary / Grades 4 to 6 (60 minutes)
30 MCQ questions [60]
2 structured questions [40]
Total 100 marks
Lower Secondary / Grades 7 to 8 (90 minutes)
20 MCQ questions [40]
3* structured theory problems /
practical programming tasks [60]
Total 100 marks
Upper Secondary / ITE / Junior College /Polytechnic / Grades 9 to 12 (90 minutes)
20 MCQ questions [40]
3* structured theory problems / design
challenge / practical programming tasks [60]
Total 100 marks
*1 problem / task will be based on an emerging AI technology theme which will be announced two months before IJAIO. This is to keep pace with AI technologies’ rapid developments and more significantly, for students and teachers to inculcate the growth mindset of lifelong learning and the critical life skill to effectively and efficiently learn, unlearn and relearn. For example, IJAIO 2026 will be conducted from mid to end January 2026. In mid November 2025, the emerging AI technology theme (eg AI agents) with associated high level overview and scope will be made available at https://computing.sg/ijaio.
Software (Secondary school division / Secondary 1 to Junior College 2 / Grades 7 to 12 only) For practical programming tasks, the language and platform used will be the current stable version of Python 3 and Jupyter Notebook / Google Colab
Hardware (Secondary school division / Secondary 1 to Junior College 2 / Grades 7 to 12 only) A Windows or MacOS laptop is recommended. Candidates using Chromebooks, Android and iOS devices may encounter compatibility issues with editing, testing and executing local Python programs/scripts for practical programming tasks
Perfect Score Award (Full marks) – qualifies as a significant award for IJHS
Gold Award (Top 8%) – qualifies as a significant award for IJHS
Silver Award (Next 12%)
Bronze Award (Next 20%)
Honorable Mention Award (Next 10%)
Certificate of Participation (Next 50%)
The top 50% of the participants will receive an award certificate. Top 40% of winners are invited to compete at STEAM AHEAD 2026– International Junior Artificial Intelligence Olympiad Global Final to be held at Uzbekistan from December 11 to 16, 2026.
REGISTRATION LAST DATE : 15TH SEPTEMBER 2026
EXAM DATE : 20TH SEPTEMBER 2026
Rs. 1800/- Rs. 1500/-
