The Ledger · Entry 012 · Code
Competitive programming (ICPC World Finals)
Ceded to machinesSince 2025Criterion performanceLast reviewed 2026-08-17
Event
At the ICPC World Finals in Baku, OpenAI reports its reasoning models solved all 12 problems within the five-hour window, and Google DeepMind's Gemini 2.5 Deep Think solves 10 of 12, a gold-medal-level result.
The champion team, St. Petersburg State University, solved 11 of 12; Gemini's 10 would have placed second among 139 university teams, and it solved one problem no team solved. The AI entries ran under contest rules but outside the official ranking, in a track arranged with ICPC; OpenAI's 12 of 12 was reported by OpenAI itself, the last problem taking nine submissions. Five-hour algorithmic problems with exact judges are now settled in favour of machines. Long-lived software, unclear specifications and maintenance are covered elsewhere in this ledger.