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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

Effective Altruism: The Philosophy Behind Silicon Valley's AI Fears

Effective Altruism conspicuously connects a number of leaders in American tech and finance. ANDREJ IVANOV / AFP
Effective Altruism conspicuously connects a number of leaders in American tech and finance. ANDREJ IVANOV / AFP
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Effective Altruism: The Philosophy Behind Silicon Valley's AI Fears

Effective Altruism conspicuously connects a number of leaders in American tech and finance. ANDREJ IVANOV / AFP
Effective Altruism conspicuously connects a number of leaders in American tech and finance. ANDREJ IVANOV / AFP

Dario Amodei says he is not part of it. But the Anthropic chief's personal and professional circle is entwined with Effective Altruism (EA), a philanthropic movement that has become one of the most contested ideas in Washington and Silicon Valley.

To its proponents, EA is a rational, evidence-based way to do good. To many in the Trump administration, it fuels unfounded and exaggerated fears about artificial intelligence -- the kind of warnings Amodei has become known for.

Here are some facts about EA:

- Philosophical roots -

EA is a loosely defined movement that uses evidence and reason to work out how to do the most good with a person's money and time.

Its intellectual roots can be traced to Australian philosopher Peter Singer.

If reasonable people would agree it is morally right to ruin one's clothes to save a drowning child, he argued in 1972, they should also sacrifice greater resources and comforts to save lives in foreign lands -- because the distance should not matter.

The idea took hold among wealthy donors who felt a moral obligation to give, but wanted their money to do as much good as possible.

- Giving what you can -

EA took shape as a decentralized movement during the heady, techno-optimistic days of the late 2000s and early 2010s -- when many believed social media and smartphones would promote empathy and democracy.

In 2007, financial professionals Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld quit their jobs to launch GiveWell, which produced data-driven analyses of charities' effectiveness.

Karnofsky was once Amodei's roommate, and is now married to his sister Daniela, who co-founded Anthropic with him.

Two years later, Oxford University philosophers William MacAskill and Toby Ord launched "Giving What We Can," encouraging people to donate at least 10 percent of their income to tackling global poverty.

"The critique of the status quo was that existing attempts to evaluate the work of charities and nonprofits focused on things like overhead and executive pay," Theodore Lechterman, a philosophy professor at IE University in Madrid, told AFP.

GiveWell and others wanted to ask, "How much good is this organization actually doing in the world?" Lechterman said.

EA's three big causes today are global poverty, factory-farmed animals and "the most controversial one -- global catastrophic risk," said Richard Chappell, a professor at University of Miami and an EA proponent.

That worry about the future is where AI comes in.

- Data-driven -

Over the last 15 years, EA has found eager followers in American tech and some corners of Wall Street.

"Since the movement is data driven, it's a relatively easier sell to people who...make decisions on the basis of data," Lechterman said.

That numbers-backed thinking means engineers, software developers or entrepreneurs might all find it more appealing than humanities graduates, Lechterman said.

Among them was Sam Bankman-Fried, the crypto-finance wunderkind sentenced in 2024 to 25 years in prison for fraud.

A vocal champion of the movement, Bankman-Fried said he went into finance to make a fortune he could give away.

He also was an early investor in Anthropic.

- EA and AI -

As AI worries grew, EA philosophers such as MacAskill were "kind of thinking about the future of humanity," said Brian Berkey of the University of Pennsylvania.

The result was long-termism, a philosophy that "came to play a very central role" in the movement.

MacAskill reportedly brokered contacts between Bankman-Fried and Elon Musk.

Musk was for years outspoken about the threat he believed AI posed to humanity, and in 2015 helped create OpenAI to guard against it.

EA's focus on AI also owes much to a neighboring movement, rationalism -- an online community that grew up around writer Eliezer Yudkowsky, who has warned since the 2000s that superintelligent AI could wipe out humanity.

The two movements overlap heavily in membership and ideas, sharing an emphasis on reasoning through evidence and probabilities, and a conviction that preventing human extinction should be a top priority.

Both converged last month on Jacob Coxon, a 27-year-old researcher who quit Anthropic warning that AI companies were "gambling with our lives." His post was viewed more than 100 million times.

Days later, Amodei published a lengthy essay arguing that AI's mounting risks warranted a slowdown.

Technology

Samsung Electronics Reportedly Raises Galaxy S26 Smartphone Prices

FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: A Samsung Electronics logo appears in this illustration taken August 25, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration//File Photo/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: A Samsung Electronics logo appears in this illustration taken August 25, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration//File Photo/File Photo
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Samsung Electronics Reportedly Raises Galaxy S26 Smartphone Prices

FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: A Samsung Electronics logo appears in this illustration taken August 25, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration//File Photo/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: A Samsung Electronics logo appears in this illustration taken August 25, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration//File Photo/File Photo

Samsung Electronics has raised the prices of its flagship Galaxy S26 smartphones amid rising memory chip prices, the Yonhap news agency reported on Thursday.

The South Korean smartphone maker raised the ⁠domestic price of its ⁠Galaxy S26 base model by 149,600 won to 1,403,600 won ($1,029.94), the report said.

The ⁠prices of other models were also raised by 149,600 won, apart from the S26 Ultra 1TB model, which was increased by 270,000 won to 2,821,500 won.

The Galaxy S26 ⁠smartphones ⁠were launched in March with higher prices for some models in the US and South Korea, testing demand as soaring memory chip costs pressure margins.

Technology

Infineon Opens $1.4 Billion Thailand Plant as Country Ramps Up Semiconductor Push

COO of Infineon Alexander Gorski speaks during SEMICON Taiwan 2026 in Taipei, Taiwan, 02 September 2026. EPA/RITCHIE B. TONGO
COO of Infineon Alexander Gorski speaks during SEMICON Taiwan 2026 in Taipei, Taiwan, 02 September 2026. EPA/RITCHIE B. TONGO
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Infineon Opens $1.4 Billion Thailand Plant as Country Ramps Up Semiconductor Push

COO of Infineon Alexander Gorski speaks during SEMICON Taiwan 2026 in Taipei, Taiwan, 02 September 2026. EPA/RITCHIE B. TONGO
COO of Infineon Alexander Gorski speaks during SEMICON Taiwan 2026 in Taipei, Taiwan, 02 September 2026. EPA/RITCHIE B. TONGO

German chipmaker Infineon Technologies opened a new facility in Thailand on Thursday, as Southeast Asia's second-largest economy pushes to attract investment into the semiconductor industry amid rising regional competition.

The new facility near Bangkok is a backend manufacturing site, where chips are processed into finished and tested semiconductors, with an initial investment of more than €100 million ($113.57 million), the company said at a briefing.

Thailand's Board of Investment said in a statement that the project was valued at $1.4 billion, Reuters reported.

The site will open with up to 30,000 sq m of ⁠cleanroom space - controlled environments ⁠required for semiconductor manufacturing - and can be expanded to 150,000 sq m, said Infineon's Chief Operations Officer Alexander Gorski.

"It's a strategic long-term investment," Gorski said, pointing to Thailand's proximity to key markets such as China. "We are well prepared for strong future growth."

The company has 13 manufacturing sites across ⁠the US, Europe, China and Southeast Asia, and can potentially double its revenue with its existing cleanroom space capacity, according to Gorski.

The Thailand expansion is also part of Infineon's efforts to offer dual sourcing to its customers, Gorski said: "If something is going wrong in the factory in Malaysia, we can support our customers through the factory in Thailand."

Thailand is aiming to draw $18 billion in semiconductor investments by 2030 by focusing on photonics, power electronics and sensors, as part of a longer-term ⁠strategy for ⁠the sector, said Board of Investment Secretary General Narit Therdsteerasukdi at the same briefing.

Between 2023 and July 2026, Thailand has drawn 910 billion baht ($27.12 billion) of investments in the semiconductor and advanced electronics sector, according to a presentation by Narit.

Besides financial incentives to attract new investments, Narit said that Thai authorities are looking to train nearly 85,000 skilled workers and over 1,700 researchers for the sector by 2030.

Global semiconductor sales are forecast to hit $1 trillion this year, doubling to $2 trillion by 2035, driven by booming growth in data centers used to power artificial intelligence technologies.