Romania wins one gold, seven silver medals at first Central European Olympiad in AI
The Romanian delegation to the first Central European Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence (CEOAI), held in Cluj-Napoca between July 14-19, won one gold medal and seven silver medals, according to the Ministry of Education.
The event represented a historic moment for the international AI community, bringing together more than 90 contestants from over 20 European countries, along with invited delegations from around the world.
During the competition, contestant had to design, train, and optimize their own artificial intelligence models, starting from completely new datasets and requirements. In the two competition days, students tackled problems in diverse fields, such as artificial intelligence model interpretability, optical character recognition (OCR), mathematical and physical modeling, computer vision, and the security of machine learning models through steganography techniques. The competition tested not only the participants' technical knowledge but also their creativity, analytical ability, and rapid adaptation to problems without standard solutions, according to G4Media.
Following the interest shown by high school students from across Europe, the competition, initially known as the Central European Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence (CEOAI), received a new name, becoming the European Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence (EUROAI).
Emil-Andrei Burloi, a student at the International Computer Science High School of Bucharest, ranked third in the overall competition standings, winning Romania's first gold medal in international AI competitions in 2026. Subsequently, following the decision of the Ministry of Education and Research for the Romanian delegation to participate as a guest delegation, the official ranking was adjusted in accordance with the competition regulations.
Silver medals went to Ciortea-Suciu Andrei from the "Silvania" National College, Zalău, Morariu Tudor from the International Computer Science High School of Bucharest, Ilie-Goga Radu from the "Tudor Vianu" National College of Computer Science Bucharest, Dobre Darius-Adrian from the "Matei Basarab" National College of Computer Science in Râmnicu Vâlcea, Apostol Mihnea-Petru from the same highschool, Nistor Iulian from the “Tiberiu Popoviciu" Computer Science High School in Cluj-Napoca, and Asandei Ștefan-Alexandru from the Iași National College.
The national team was coordinated by Miron Radu (Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași) and Ciprian Păduraru (University of Bucharest). The national team's qualification was achieved following the ROAI stages, organized in partnership with Genesis College and the "Tudor Vianu" National College of Computer Science, with the support of the Nitro Association, Babeș-Bolyai University, the University of Bucharest, and Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași.
Throughout the selection stages, hundreds of students from across the country solved original machine learning and deep learning problems, training their own models and demonstrating advanced skills in a field at the intersection of computer science, mathematics, and research.
(Photo source: Ministerul Educației - România on Facebook)
