AI Makes History With Perfect Score at World’s Toughest Mathematics Competition

Artificial intelligence has reached a major milestone after two Chinese technology companies announced that their AI models achieved perfect scores at the 2026 International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), one of the world’s most prestigious mathematics competitions.

Huawei and Xiaohongshu said their AI systems each scored 100 per cent under the IMO’s official judging process, marking the first time large language models have recorded a flawless result at the global contest.

“We are delighted with this result, because achieving a perfect score at the IMO is extremely challenging. Previously, no large language model had ever achieved a perfect score under the IMO’s official judging process,” Xiaohongshu said in a statement.

The achievement follows last year’s competition, where AI models from Google and OpenAI reached gold-medal level for the first time but fell short of full marks.

This year’s Olympiad, held in Shanghai, attracted 666 contestants from around the world, with only seven students achieving perfect scores.

Huawei said its AI system, Celia, demonstrated strong problem-solving abilities across several mathematical fields, while Xiaohongshu’s dots-note-3.0 model made its IMO debut.

The companies said the AI models received the questions only after the human competition had ended and completed the challenge within the required time limit without any human assistance, highlighting the rapid progress of AI in tackling complex mathematical problems.