SAI students claim SZTU’s first gold medal at ICPC Asia Regional

On October 18, the 51st International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) Asia Regional Contest concluded in Xi’an. The School of Artificial Intelligence (SAI) ACM Training Team comprising three SAI students Cai Zekai, Lin Jianwei, and Zhang Keyi, won a historic gold medal.

The ICPC Asia Regional Gold Medal awarded to SAI students [Photo/School of Artificial Intelligence]

Dubbed the “Olympics of Computer Science,” the ICPC is the world’s oldest, largest, and most prestigious programming competition for university students. This season alone, 60,948 students from 3,148 universities across 103 countries and regions participated. In China, hundreds of thousands of students compete annually for a chance to represent their institutions. After a highly competitive online qualifier featuring 3,000 teams from 533 universities, 402 teams from 227 universities advanced to the Asia Regional in Xi’an. Ultimately, gold medals were awarded to teams from only 27 universities—and SZTU was one of them.

Teams from universities across the country gather for the ICPC Asia Regional in Xi’an. [Photo/ICPC Organizing Committee]

Established in 2021, the SAI ACM Training Team has made steady progress in the ICPC over the past five years, winning bronze at the ICPC Asia Regional in its debut year (2021), its first silver at the Asia Regional in 2023, gold at the ICPC National Invitational in 2025, and gold at the ICPC Asia Regional in 2026.

The SAI team poses for a group photo. [Photo/School of Artificial Intelligence]

This success is underpinned by SAI’s “Three Ones” Project, an initiative designed to cultivate applied talents. The project guides undergraduates to join a student lab or club, participate in a competition, and complete a real-world engineering project—three progressive steps aimed at turning classroom knowledge into verifiable and practical outcomes. For algorithm learning specifically, the project unites the students in the ACM Team to improve their programming skills through competition, and drive their application of knowledge.

The “Three Ones” Project framework for applied talent cultivation at SAI [Graphic/School of Artificial Intelligence]

Associate Prof. Guo Yundi, head coach of the ACM Training Team, knows the weight of this achievement, having won a gold medal as a team captain during his student days. “We are in an era where AI writes code increasingly fast. AI can already match or even surpass humans in many coding tasks. However, the ability to clearly think through unfamiliar problems and possess sound judgment over solutions is the hardest to replace. It is the key to truly mastering AI in this era,” He emphasized.

Prof. Fu Xianghua, vice dean of SAI, highlighted the broader significance of this milestone. “Since its establishment in 2021, the ACM Training Team has gone from zero to a gold medal at the ICPC Asia Regional in just five years, and has won more than 1,100 awards of various kinds. The team and the Algorithm and Programming Innovation Lab are representative examples of SAI’s innovation labs and key vehicles for the ‘Three Ones’ Project,” said Prof. Fu. Looking ahead, he noted that SAI will continue to strengthen its innovation labs and refine the mechanisms for advancing the “Three Ones” Project. The goal is to ensure that faculty contributions are supported and can be sustained over time, and that students’ growth is both measurable and demonstrable, thereby energizing both teaching and learning and ensuring that the project is fully implemented in practice.

Members of the SAI ACM Training Team pose for a group photo. [Photo/School of Artificial Intelligence]

The team’s achievements have translated into concrete career opportunities for its students. Some members have received internship or full-time job offers from Tencent, ByteDance, and other hi-tech companies. These outcomes reflect both the students’ strong performance and the growing recognition of the team’s talent by leading industry players.

Written by LIN Junzhong / School of Artificial Intelligence, Class of 2029

Reviewed by YAO Qi / School of Artificial Intelligence