Nepal has won its first medal at the International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence, with Sidant Chaturbedi securing bronze at the competition’s third edition in Astana, Kazakhstan.

The Olympiad, held from August 2 to 8, brought together 462 contestants from 103 countries and territories, making it the largest edition of the competition so far. Three other Nepali contestants, Prasiddha Mainali, Pitambar Lamichhane and Aayush Yadav, received Honourable Mentions. All four are students of St Xavier’s College, Maitighar, Kathmandu.

Contestants competed individually in two six-hour rounds on August 4 and 6, solving machine-learning problems using Python and Jupyter Notebook. Medals were awarded based on their combined scores.

Nepal has participated in all three editions of the Olympiad, held in Burgas, Bulgaria, in 2024 and Beijing, China, in 2025, but returned without awards from both.

“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), which organised Nepal’s selection process. “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, a multistage competition for secondary school students. Lamichhane placed first and Mainali second in the 2026 national round.

The finalists received training from experts at Fusemachines, covering machine-learning fundamentals, model training and applied problem-solving.

HLON says the competition could help build a pipeline of AI professionals in Nepal by exposing students to programming, artificial intelligence and machine learning from an early age.