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ATHKA Olympiad Achieves Record Enrolment in Kingdom with over 260,000 Saudi Students

ATHKA Olympiad Achieves Record Enrolment in Kingdom with over 260,000 Saudi Students
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ATHKA Olympiad Achieves Record Enrolment in Kingdom with over 260,000 Saudi Students

ATHKA Olympiad Achieves Record Enrolment in Kingdom with over 260,000 Saudi Students

National Olympiad for Programming and Artificial Intelligence (ATHKA) has set a record with over 260,000 Saudi male and female students from intermediate and secondary levels participating.

Representing over 10,000 schools in the Kingdom, this makes it the largest national Olympiad to reach such extensive participation. The surge in involvement indicates a significant rise in the Kingdom's youth awareness and interest in programming and AI technologies, SPA reported.

The substantial engagement with ATHKA highlights the successful collaboration between the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA), the Ministry of Education, and the King Abdulaziz and His Companions Foundation for Giftedness and Creativity (Mawhiba).

Together, they aim to bolster ATHKA as a national initiative nurturing a generation proficient in programming and AI, aligning with the objectives of Saudi Vision 2030 for human capacity development.

In April 2023, the Kingdom secured the second position globally in societal awareness of AI. This achievement follows a survey demonstrating increased confidence among Saudi citizens in utilizing AI products and services.

The Artificial Intelligence Index's sixth edition report by Stanford University indicates a high level of trust among Saudi citizens in embracing AI within the Kingdom.

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OpenAI Enters Google-Dominated Search Market with SearchGPT 

OpenAI logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024. (Reuters)
OpenAI logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024. (Reuters)
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OpenAI Enters Google-Dominated Search Market with SearchGPT 

OpenAI logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024. (Reuters)
OpenAI logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024. (Reuters)

OpenAI is venturing into a territory long dominated by Google with the selective launch of SearchGPT, an artificial intelligence-powered search engine with real-time access to information from the internet.

The move, announced on Thursday, also places the AI giant in competition with its largest backer Microsoft's Bing search and emerging services such as Perplexity — a search-focused AI chatbot firm backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and semiconductor giant Nvidia.

Shares of Google's parent company Alphabet ended 3% lower on Thursday after OpenAI's announcement.

OpenAI said it has opened sign-ups for the new tool, which is currently in the prototype stage and is being tested with a small group of users and publishers. The company plans to integrate the best features from the search tool into ChatGPT in the future.

"AI-powered search tools from OpenAI and Perplexity re-affirm search as a content engagement model but pressure Google to be better at its own game," Canaccord Genuity analyst Kingsley Crane said.

Google dominates the search engine market with a 91.1% share as of June, according to web analytics firm Statcounter.

SearchGPT will provide summarized search results with source links in response to user queries, OpenAI said in a blog post. Users will also be able to ask follow-up questions and receive contextual responses.

The company will give publishers access to tools for managing how their content appears in SearchGPT results. News Corp and The Atlantic are publishing partners for SearchGPT.

SearchGPT signals a closer collaboration between publishers and OpenAI, following content licensing agreements with major organizations like Associated Press, News Corp and Axel Springer.

"Newer AI-powered search providers could face challenges of their own, with Perplexity already facing pending legal action from publishers like Wired and Forbes, and Condé Nast," said Crane.

Major search engines have been trying to integrate AI into search since ChatGPT first launched in November 2022. Microsoft, through its early investment, adopted OpenAI technology for its Bing search engine, while Google rolled out AI-powered summaries for the wider public at its developer conference in May.

Google did not respond to a Reuters query on the potential impact of SearchGPT on its business.

Reuters had earlier reported on OpenAI's plans around AI search in May.