Final of International Yandex–HSE Olympiad in AI and Data Analysis Held at HSE University
Yandex Education and the HSE Faculty of Computer Science have announced the results of the international AIDAO (Artificial Intelligence and Data Analysis Olympiad) competition. Students from 14 countries took part. For the second year in a row, first place went to the team AI Capybara, which developed the most accurate AI model for an autonomous vehicle vision system.
This year, the olympiad brought together 248 teams from Russia, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Germany, Iran, and other countries. The prize fund amounted to 2,650,000 rubles, shared between the five best teams. Participants tackled applied AI tasks based on real datasets and industry needs.
The assignment for the online qualifying round was created by HSE’s Laboratory of Methods for Big Data Analysis (LAMBDA) and by QRate, a developer of quantum-technology-based secure communication systems. Competitors worked with an algorithm that helps correct errors in the transmission of secret quantum keys, making them more reliable and secure for users. Such technologies are needed to ensure the safe exchange of sensitive information in many fields, including finance, public services and scientific research.
Thirty of the strongest teams advanced to the on-site final, which took place in Moscow. Under the olympiad’s rules, the previous year’s winners—AI Capybara from ITMO University—also took part in the final round.
Ivan Arzhantsev, Dean of the HSE Faculty of Computer Science
‘The seventh AIDAO final vividly confirms that today artificial intelligence and data analysis bring together the strongest students and postgraduates from across the country—and beyond. I am especially pleased that the top teams represent a wide range of universities.
I congratulate all the prize-winning teams. Your work is not simply about solving complex problems, but about a dialogue between disciplines, where mathematics, programming, and scientific curiosity go hand in hand. I would like to thank all participants, mentors and, of course, our partners from Yandex Education—without such cooperation, initiatives like this would not be possible.’
The task for the final stage was developed by Yandex’s autonomous transport team and focused on AI in robotics. Participants had to train an AI model to construct maps of stationary obstacles based on images. Such maps are used for autonomous vehicle navigation in cities and on motorways.
The participants’ solutions were first checked by the Yandex Contest testing system (also used in the All-Russian School Olympiad in Informatics and other competitions) and then evaluated by experts from HSE and Yandex. The most accurate model was created by the AI Capybara team, consisting of Timur Ionov and Daria Ledneva. They became AIDAO champions for the second consecutive year and received one million rubles. Alongside ITMO, the top five also included teams featuring students from MIPT, Skoltech, Moscow State University, the Financial University, Far Eastern Federal University and Saint Petersburg State University of Aerospace Instrumentation (SUAI).
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