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Saudi Arabia to Host First International AI Olympiad

SDAIA will hold the first international edition of the International AI Olympiad (IAIO) between September 8-12
SDAIA will hold the first international edition of the International AI Olympiad (IAIO) between September 8-12
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Saudi Arabia to Host First International AI Olympiad

SDAIA will hold the first international edition of the International AI Olympiad (IAIO) between September 8-12
SDAIA will hold the first international edition of the International AI Olympiad (IAIO) between September 8-12

The Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) will hold the first international edition of the International AI Olympiad (IAIO) between September 8-12, in which some 25 countries are expected to take part.

The event will be held in collaboration with the International Center for Artificial Intelligence Research and Ethics (ICAIRE) and the International Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (IRCAI) in Slovenia, under UNESCO auspices.

SDAIA aims to establish this international Olympiad as a premier platform for AI competitions, nurturing talent, and fostering skill development. The event will be a forum for scientists and enthusiasts from around the world to exchange ideas, enhance capabilities, and explore the latest advancements in the field.

Moreover, SDAIA envisions IAIO as a catalyst for future global expansions, serving as a powerful motivator for young men and women the world over to engage in activities pertaining to AI.

This initiative aims to cultivate a new generation equipped with a profound understanding of the transformative technologies that have become an integral part of humanity's daily lives and business systems.

In preparation for the Olympiad, SDAIA conducted a series of virtual lectures on AI, on the Olympiad website, designed to qualify international teams for the competition and empower interested students from various countries to expand their knowledge in this crucial domain.

The lectures spanned five weeks and covered diverse topics such as Introduction to AI, Social Impact of AI (ethics, fairness), Kernel Methods, Working with Data, Deployed Deep Generative Models, Supervised Learning, AI-Search, Learning Evaluation, Reinforcement Learning, and Unsupervised Learning.

Each participating country fielded a team of up to four students, who will compete individually over two days during the third edition of the Global AI Summit. The first day is slated to focus on scientific questions, while the second involve solving scientific problems using AI technologies through a specially designed platform.

IAIO aligns with SDAIA's commitment to raising the Kingdom's global standing, making it a leading force in data and AI. It also contributes to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by the UN by raising awareness about the significance of advanced technologies and equipping communities with the knowledge and skills necessary to master them.

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Technology

World Bank: Saudi Arabia Presents Global Model for Responsible AI Innovation in Digital Learning

The Saudi flag. File/Asharq Al-Awsat
The Saudi flag. File/Asharq Al-Awsat
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World Bank: Saudi Arabia Presents Global Model for Responsible AI Innovation in Digital Learning

The Saudi flag. File/Asharq Al-Awsat
The Saudi flag. File/Asharq Al-Awsat

The World Bank has documented Saudi Arabia's experience in utilizing AI in learning, affirming that the AI Sandbox for Digital Learning (AISB) initiative represents a pioneering national model for countries seeking to advance responsible innovation and improve the quality of digital learning, SPA reported.

This came in a study published by the World Bank titled: "AI Sandbox for Digital Learning in Saudi Arabia: Driving Socio-Economic Impact through AI Innovation in Digital Learning." The study reviewed the Saudi experience as an integrated model that combines practical experimentation, capacity building, governance, and the orchestration of an innovation ecosystem within a single national platform led by the National eLearning Centre (NeLC).

The study highlighted that the initiative actively contributes to enhancing digital learning quality, developing human capabilities, and boosting national workforce readiness. Furthermore, it enabled institutions and innovators to develop and test AI solutions within real-world, secure learning environments, directly aligning with the objectives of Saudi Vision 2030 and maximizing the socio-economic impact of innovation in learning.

The study also noted that the Saudi experience transcends the mere testing of technologies; it provides an environment that fosters the generation of evidence-based knowledge, strengthens partnerships, and accelerates the adoption of responsible innovation. Consequently, this helps build a sustainable ecosystem for AI in digital learning.

The World Bank concluded that the Saudi experience has laid a solid foundation to build upon, positioning Saudi Arabia to serve as a regional and international reference point for responsible, evidence-informed innovation.

The AISB, led by NeLC, is implemented within an integrated national ecosystem in partnership with several government institutions.

Technology

South Korea's SK Hynix to Invest $64 Billion in Memory Chip Plants

FILE PHOTO: The SK Hynix logo appears in this illustration taken August 25, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: The SK Hynix logo appears in this illustration taken August 25, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File Photo
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South Korea's SK Hynix to Invest $64 Billion in Memory Chip Plants

FILE PHOTO: The SK Hynix logo appears in this illustration taken August 25, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: The SK Hynix logo appears in this illustration taken August 25, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File Photo

SK Hynix said it would invest 100 trillion won ($64.38 billion) to build new chip plants, including one for NAND flash memory, as part of a massive South Korean investment drive aimed at spreading returns from the AI boom beyond Seoul.

The projects in the central city of Cheongju outlined on Thursday are included in a broader $2.1 trillion plan unveiled by the chipmaker and its local rival Samsung Electronics this week that also included a new chip cluster in the southwest and existing projects.

The huge capacity buildout by the South Korean chipmakers is a major political win for the country's President Lee Jae Myung, who wants the AI windfall to help revive economies beyond ⁠the Seoul metropolitan area, ⁠though it is stoking fears of a painful reckoning if AI spending cools.

At an event on Thursday attended by Lee, SK Hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung said the company would spend 80 trillion won to build a new factory for NAND memory chip production by 2029 and 20 trillion won for a chip packaging plant by late 2027 in Cheongju.

The plan to invest 100 trillion won in Cheongju was announced on Monday, but details of the investment were not provided at the time, Reuters reported.

South Korea is hoping the investments will ⁠double the country's memory chip production capacity within five years. Samsung and SK Hynix are the world's largest manufacturers of memory chips alongside US rival Micron.

The investments come as demand from AI hyperscalers has caused a global shortage of all types of memory chips. Prices for both NAND flash memory, a storage chip that retains data even when a device is turned off, and DRAM have soared to historical highs.

SK Hynix shares ended down 15% and Samsung shares closed 9% lower on Thursday, hit by a global selloff in chipmakers as Meta Platforms' plan to sell computing power raised questions over excess AI computing capacity.

Michael Burry, the investor whose successful bets against the US housing market in 2008 were recounted in the movie "The Big Short," expressed caution about the massive South Korean investment plan in a subscriber-only Substack ⁠newsletter on Tuesday, the Wall ⁠Street Journal reported.

The investment drive set off alarm bells for Burry over whether the massive sums of money being poured into AI could ever generate appropriate returns, according to the report, which added that he had made more bearish bets against AI-related stocks.

"I see that as the beginning of the end," he told subscribers.

At the SK Hynix event, Kwak expressed confidence in AI-driven demand for chips.

"While demand for NAND has been increasing and is expected to continue growing in the future, NAND supply is constrained," he said.

SK Hynix said it planned to start construction of the new Cheongju NAND factory, known as M17, next year.

In April, SK Hynix broke ground on the P&T7 fab at Cheongju, a dedicated advanced packaging facility for AI memory, including high-bandwidth memory.

However, the company cautioned in a filing this week that the long-term investment plans could change depending on global chip demand and spending by major customers.

Factors such as delays in selecting and securing construction sites could also cause it to postpone plans, it added.

Technology

Microsoft Partners with Singapore's Lightstorm to Build India-Southeast Asia Undersea Cable

FILED - 30 January 2026, Bavaria, Munich: FILE PHOTO - The Microsoft logo can be seen on the Microsoft Germany headquarters building in Munich. Photo: Sven Hoppe/dpa
FILED - 30 January 2026, Bavaria, Munich: FILE PHOTO - The Microsoft logo can be seen on the Microsoft Germany headquarters building in Munich. Photo: Sven Hoppe/dpa
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Microsoft Partners with Singapore's Lightstorm to Build India-Southeast Asia Undersea Cable

FILED - 30 January 2026, Bavaria, Munich: FILE PHOTO - The Microsoft logo can be seen on the Microsoft Germany headquarters building in Munich. Photo: Sven Hoppe/dpa
FILED - 30 January 2026, Bavaria, Munich: FILE PHOTO - The Microsoft logo can be seen on the Microsoft Germany headquarters building in Munich. Photo: Sven Hoppe/dpa

A consortium including Microsoft and telecom startup Lightstorm plans to build a new undersea cable linking India with Malaysia and Singapore as technology firms compete to expand AI and cloud infrastructure in India, one of the world's fastest-growing data markets.

The consortium, whose other members include Tata Communications , Singapore Telecommunications, Singapore's ASEAN Cableship and Japan's NEC Corporation, will construct the I-2SEA cable to support AI, cloud and hyperscale workloads, Reuters quoted the companies as saying on Thursday.

They did not provide additional details including the investment ⁠size.

The network will ⁠span 3,600 km and have landing stations in Machilipatnam in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, where Meta and Alphabet have announced data centers.

The cable is expected to be operational in the fourth quarter of 2029, Lightstorm Group CEO and Managing ⁠Director Amajit Gupta told Reuters in an interview.

The I Squared-backed company currently connects 19 AI and cloud zones across India through terrestrial fiber cable networks, with the new network expected to bring this number up to 29, Gupta said.

India's operational data center capacity could double from the current 1.4 gigawatts by 2027, based on projects under construction, and increase five-fold by 2030 if planned projects are fast-tracked, Macquarie Equity Research ⁠said in ⁠a report last October.

Undersea cables carry roughly 95% of the world's internet traffic. India currently has 17 active submarine cables with a maximum potential capacity of 960 terabits per second, and at least 10 more have been publicly announced, according to TeleGeography, a telecommunications research firm.

Separately, Lightstorm plans to list in India in mid-2027, Gupta said, without disclosing any other details. The company was seeking a valuation of up to $1.5 billion in March, according to a media report.