All four members of the Philippines’ first delegation to the International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence (IOAI) won medals, giving the country a 100 percent medal rate in its debut.

The Filipino team brought home one silver and three bronze medals after competing against 466 high school students from 108 countries and territories at the 2026 IOAI in Astana, Kazakhstan.

Theo Lorenzo T. Bustamante of Philippine Science High School-CALABARZON Region Campus won silver, while Ellison Matthew S. Ang of Philippine Science High School-Main Campus, Juan Mateo J. Desuasido of Brent International School Manila, and Jhareign S. Solidum of University of Mindanao Ilang High School each secured bronze.

Bustamante ranked 80th overall, placing among the top 17 percent of competitors. The Philippines was also among 11 of 18 countries making their IOAI debut this year to win at least one silver medal.

The competition tested students in machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, and multimodal processing.

The Philippine delegation was selected, trained, and managed by IOAI Philippines, hosted by the Ateneo Business Insights Laboratory for Development (BUILD) under the John Gokongwei School of Management of Ateneo de Manila University.

The students underwent 10 months of preparation, including boot camps on machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, audio processing, and optimization.

“A 100% medal rate on our global debut proves that Philippine talent can immediately compete at the highest level of international AI,” IOAI PH Executive Director and Team Leader Martin Gomez said.

The delegation received financial assistance from the IOAI Board and Committee, while government support came from the Office of the President, Office of the Executive Secretary, Department of Education, and DOST-Science Education Institute.

Singapore will host the fourth IOAI in 2027.