International Mathematical Olympiad

The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is an annual mathematics competition for high school students, established in 1959. It is the oldest and most prestigious international mathematics competition for pre-university students, featuring six problems solved over two days.

Key facts:

• Hosted by a different country each year
• Problems require deep mathematical insight (number theory, algebra, combinatorics, geometry)
• Medals awarded to top 50% of participants (gold: top 8%, silver: next 15%, bronze: next 27%)
• Participants must be under 20 and not enrolled in university

Recent AI Achievement (2026):

• google-deepmind’s gemini-25-pro model with deep-think achieved a gold-medal standard at the IMO
• Outperformed previous AI attempts and was compared to a concurrent achievement by openai
• Demonstrated human-level mathematical reasoning capabilities

See also: 2026 04 14 Gemini deep think sam witteveen