
OpenAI's AI crushes coding legends in 10-hour programming contest, but one human still beat the bot
His final score? An astonishing 1,812,272,558,909 points. OpenAI's model, listed under the name "OpenAIAHC," finished second with 1,654,675,725,406 points, just 9.5 per cent behind. The AI still managed to outperform the remaining ten elite human programmers, who had each qualified for the competition through year-long rankings.
A test of enduranceThe competition's format was gruelling. Participants had 600 minutes, a full 10 hours, to tackle a single complex optimisation problem under the Heuristic Contest division. These problems fall under the NP-hard category, requiring contestants to use clever, often imperfect strategies to reach the best possible solutions within strict time constraints.All competitors, human and AI alike, were provided with identical hardware to ensure fairness. Submissions were permitted in any programming language supported by AtCoder, with a five-minute cooldown period between each one.Debiak's victory has become a modern-day metaphor for the resilience of human intellect in the face of rapid automation.The contest not only tested raw programming ability but also became a symbolic moment in the ongoing debate about AI's growing role in skilled professions.OpenAI CEO Sam Altman commentsadvertisementThe symbolic nature of the match wasn't lost on OpenAI. In a post on X, the company wrote: 'Our model took 2nd place at the AtCoder Heuristics World Finals! Congrats to the champion for holding us off this time.'OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also acknowledged Debiak's victory, posting a simple but telling message: 'Good job psyho.'For Debiak, it was a proud but exhausting win, made even more significant given his own history with OpenAI, where he previously worked. The result served as a reminder that, while AI continues to grow in capability, human ingenuity, under pressure, still holds its ground.However, OpenAI called the second-place finish a milestone for AI in competitive programming raises broader questions about the future of such contests. If AI models can already rival world-class humans under fair conditions, how long will it be before they dominate completely?For now, the balance has been maintained. But as AI tools become faster, smarter, and more autonomous, contests like AtCoder may increasingly become battlegrounds not just for high scores—but for the soul of programming itself.- Ends
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Time of India
26 minutes ago
- Time of India
ET Soonicorns Summit 2025: Forging a digital India for a billion people with AI for Bharat
Academy Empower your mind, elevate your skills Sumanth Naropanth - CEO, Deep Armor and Gauntlet - CEO, Deep Armor and Gauntlet Jai Asundi - Executive Director, Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP) - Executive Director, Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP) Adarsh Natarajan - CEO, Aindra (AI-powered medtech) - CEO, Aindra (AI-powered medtech) Abhinav Aggarwal - Founder & CEO, Fluid AI - Founder & CEO, Fluid AI Ankit Bose - Head, Nasscom AI - Head, Nasscom AI Jyotsna Jayaram - Partner, Trilegal The strategic roadmap for building a sovereign AI infrastructure powered by localised data centers. How startups can effectively develop AI solutions that cater to India's vast linguistic and cultural diversity. The crucial interplay between government policy, private investment, and regulatory frameworks in scaling India's AI capabilities. Real-world case studies of 'AI for Bharat' in critical sectors like healthcare and finance. Actionable strategies for bridging the digital divide to ensure an inclusive AI-driven future for all Indians. As India solidifies its position as a global technology powerhouse, a crucial question is taking centre stage: How can the nation build artificial intelligence (AI) that serves its uniquely diverse population? The upcoming ET Soonicorns Summit 2025 will address this question head-on in a pivotal session titled, 'AI for Bharat: How Localised Data Centres Can Bridge the Digital Divide with Indian Solutions.'The conversation will move beyond generic AI discourse to address the foundational elements required to create AI solutions for India's diverse cultural and linguistic landscape. This includes a deep dive into the critical role of localised data centres—the engine of the AI revolution. The session will bring together some of the leading minds from the startup ecosystem, policy research, and legal sectors to explore India's path digital economy is expanding rapidly and is projected to contribute nearly a fifth of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030 . Fuelling this growth is the swift adoption of AI, with India's Generative (Gen) AI market expected to surge from approximately USD 1.1 billion in 2025 to USD 6.4 billion by 2030 . To truly harness this potential for every citizen, developing 'AI for Bharat' is not just an opportunity but a necessity. This means creating AI solutions that understand and cater to India's multitude of languages and cultural nuances, a task that requires massive, localised datasets and the infrastructure to process is where the significance of local data centres becomes paramount. Spurred by the demands of AI and cloud service providers, India's data centre capacity is projected to surge by 77% to 1.8 GW by 2027 . The Indian government is actively fostering this growth with initiatives such as the IndiaAI mission, which aims to bolster the country's AI ecosystem. Yet, a formidable challenge remains: bridging the persistent digital divide. In 2024, rural India had 488 million internet users, significantly more than the urban user base. However, disparities in consistent access and digital literacy the charge in securing the very infrastructure that will power 'AI for Bharat' is Sumanth Naropanth, CEO of Deep Armor and Gauntlet. Gauntlet provides an AI-powered platform for comprehensive cloud and AI security monitoring. Naropanth's expertise is critical in a landscape where the security of data centres and AI models is non-negotiable for building trust and ensuring the integrity of India's digital future. His work addresses the foundational need for robust security as India scales its AI Asundi, the Executive Director of the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP), brings a crucial policy and research perspective to the discussion. CSTEP is a leading think tank that enriches policymaking with innovative approaches, and Asundi has been instrumental in establishing 'AI for social impact' as a key area of work. His insights will be vital in understanding how policy can guide the development of AI and data centre infrastructure to ensure it leads to inclusive and sustainable development for all of the frontlines of applying AI to solve uniquely Indian challenges comes Adarsh Natarajan, the founder and CEO of Aindra Systems. Aindra is a pioneering medtech startup that leverages AI-powered computer vision for the early detection of cervical cancer, particularly in low-resource settings. Natarajan's journey with Aindra, which he founded after his MBA from IIM Bangalore, exemplifies the potential of deep tech to address critical societal needs. His experience will shed light on the practicalities and impact of building AI solutions for the Indian context.A visionary in the conversational AI space, Abhinav Aggarwal, the Co-founder and CEO of Fluid AI, will offer a glimpse into the future of human-AI interaction in India. Fluid AI provides a generative AI platform that automates customer support and employee assistance, showcasing the potential to enhance service delivery and efficiency. A self-taught coder who dropped out of a prestigious MBA programme to build his company, Aggarwal's story underscores the passion and innovation driving India's AI startup the voice of the Indian IT industry is Ankit Bose, Head of Nasscom AI. His perspective will be crucial in understanding broader industry trends and the collective action needed to realise the 'AI for Bharat' the essential legal and regulatory framework for this technological revolution is Jyotsna Jayaram, a Partner at the law firm Trilegal. As AI and data localisation become increasingly intertwined with policy, her expertise in advising domestic and international clients on data protection, privacy, and cybersecurity will be invaluable in navigating the complex legal this diverse expertise on stage, the session is poised to tackle the central questions holding the key to India's AI future. How does India balance the race for data centre supremacy with the non-negotiable needs for data security and privacy? As the government rolls out ambitious policies like the IndiaAI Mission, how can startups and think tanks ensure these initiatives translate into tangible impact on the ground, truly bridging the digital divide rather than widening it?The discussion will move from the theoretical to the practical. What does it take to build an AI model that works not just in a lab but in a low-resource rural clinic? How can generative AI be adapted to serve a multilingual population with varying levels of digital literacy? This panel will explore the friction and synergy between policy, technology, security, and law, providing a holistic view of the challenges and opportunities in building an AI ecosystem for a billion session will cut through the hype to provide a grounded, forward-looking perspective. Attendees can expect to gain a clear understanding of:This session will provide a nuanced look at the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in creating a truly digital Bharat.360 One is the presenting partner of the ET Soonicorns Summit 2025.(This article is generated and published by the ET Spotlight team. You can get in touch with them at etspotlight@ .)


Hindustan Times
33 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
AI ethics & employability
In today's Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered world, a silent transformation is underway. From automating mundane tasks to predicting human behaviour, artificial intelligence is reshaping how we live, work, and lead. And as industries adapt at breakneck speed, the question before us is no longer whether AI will shape the future of work—it's how prepared we are to shape it responsibly. AI (Unsplash) For business schools, this isn't just a curriculum challenge—it's a moral and strategic imperative. Machines now write emails, analyse markets, and even diagnose diseases. But while we celebrate these efficiencies, we must also confront a more sobering reality—our reliance on AI is growing faster than our understanding of its ethical boundaries. Many students entering the workforce today can prompt ChatGPT with ease, yet struggle to question the fairness of an algorithm or recognise when automation replaces empathy. This is where business education must evolve—not just to teach how AI works, but to ask why it should be used, who it serves, and what it might displace. At institutions like the University of Massachusetts Amherst and University of Colorado Boulder, business schools are already taking bold steps—launching dedicated courses on AI ethics, building multi-stakeholder committees, and embedding GenAI tools into foundational coursework. At FIIB, we too are reflecting deeply on how AI integration must be as much about critical thinking and conscience as it is about technical proficiency. Because at the heart of this revolution lies a powerful truth: AI is created by humans—and it inherits our flaws. From insurance companies using opaque algorithms to deny claims, to marketing departments unknowingly lifting copyrighted content, the ethical dilemmas are real and rising. Bias in datasets, lack of transparency, and the black-box nature of AI decision-making demand that we teach students not just to use these tools—but to challenge them, audit them, and lead ethically through them. Historically, universities have been centres of knowledge transmission. But in the AI age, they must also become centres of knowledge navigation—places where students learn how to live and lead in a world where human and machine intelligence coexist, often contentiously. We need to expand the traditional triad of teaching, research, and service into a more dynamic ecosystem—one that fuses academic rigor with industry relevance and social responsibility. AI shouldn't just be a vertical within IT electives; it should become a horizontal theme cutting across marketing, operations, finance, and strategy. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 in India provides a timely foundation for this shift. By encouraging multidisciplinary thinking, innovation labs, and industry-academia collaboration, the NEP invites institutions to evolve beyond silos and reimagine themselves as hubs of real-world problem-solving. India is at a critical inflection point. With declining university-age demographics, rapid industrial shifts, and growing global competition, universities cannot afford to stand still. They must embed AI thinking across disciplines, establish centres of excellence, collaborate with industry to shape demand-driven curricula, and foster faculty development programmes that ensure educators are as AI-aware as their students. This transformation need not be expensive—it must be intentional. We've already seen industry giants like Microsoft and Google partner with Indian institutions to create AI upskilling initiatives. But what we need next is a coordinated national strategy—one that recognises business schools not just as talent factories, but as ethics incubators and policy influencers. Amid all this change, one thing must remain clear: AI should not be used to replace human intelligence—it should enhance it. And that enhancement must include empathy, diversity, fairness, and inclusion. We must teach our students that while AI may accelerate analysis, it cannot replace curiosity. It may automate tasks, but not trust. And it may generate content, but not character. Let us not create a generation of professionals who can code without conscience or automate without accountability. Let us instead nurture responsible leaders who understand that the future of business is not just digital—it's deeply human. In the race to keep up with AI, business schools must not just adapt—they must lead. And they must do so with boldness, foresight, and a renewed commitment to building a world where technology serves humanity—not the other way around. This article is authored by Radhika Shrivastava, CEO and president, FIIB.


Time of India
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