A Chinese teenager outsmarted AI and beat students from elite universities like MIT, Stanford, and Princeton in a math contest.
Chinese teenager stuns at the Alibaba Global Math Competition
The 17-year-old, a fashion design student, wowed everyone with her performance despite coming from a vocational school, which aren’t usually known for academic excellence in China.
Out of thousands of participants, Jiang Ping was the only one from such a background, according to state media.
The Chinese teenager clinched the 12th spot in the latest qualifying round of the Alibaba Global Math Competition, a prestigious and notoriously tough contest. This secured her place among the 801 global finalists for the final eight-hour test.
The qualifying round, which wrapped up last Saturday, lasted 48 hours and featured both multiple-choice and essay-length questions. The competition tests areas like applied mathematics, probability, and algebra.
Interestingly, no AI teams made it to the finals, as per the organizers’ post on the Chinese social media platform Weixin.
Jiang also surpassed her own teacher, Wang Runqiu, who ranked 125th in the contest.
Wang reportedly pushed the teenager to take part in the competition. He said, “I want to help young people as much as possible, and let them know they can have a different future.”
Jiang’s unexpected victory has garnered her a wave of fans. A hashtag about her success amassed 17 million views by Saturday. The hashtag, translated from Chinese, reads, “In a life not defined by others, anyone can be a dark horse.”
The final results will be announced in August, and winners can earn up to $30,000 in prize money.
Jiang said that working out advanced math “brings out my desire to explore,” in an interview posted by the organizers.
Chinese teenager has become a phenomenon after outsmarting AI
Fans are flocking to the Chinese teenager’s parents’ home in Jiangsu province, bringing gifts to show their support. Local shopping malls have even hung pictures of her on their walls.
Jiang considers math a “hobby,” and didn’t think she was worthy of entering the competition, but now plans to pursue the subject as a minor at a solid university.
“If studying fashion design is my plan A, then exploring the world of math is my plan B,” she commented. “I hope my plan B can be seen.”
Despite scoring high enough marks on a high school entrance exam, Jiang chose her current vocational school because her older sister and good friends were also students there.
The competition, which was launched in 2018, is open to all mathletes, no matter where they hail from. This year, for the first time, AI teams were allowed to compete.
“No matter what the future holds, this interest will continue,” the Chinese teenager noted about her love of math.
Tween becomes school’s youngest graduate
In California, an 11-year-old girl became a college’s youngest-ever graduate, breaking a record that was set by her fellow tween older brother.
Athena Elling will graduated cum laude from Irvine Valley College with an associate’s degree in liberal arts.
She is the college’s youngest-ever graduate, shattering her older brother Tycho’s record by seven months.
“I know I’m supposed to say that learning is its own reward and it really kind of is, but also, as a second child, beating my older brother is kind of everything,” she commented to The Orange County Register,
Her brother Tycho, 12, is no slouch. He graduated from IVC with an associate’s degree in mathematics in 2023.
He has been taking math classes at UC Irvine ever since, and has begun applying to doctoral programs.
Athena is continuing on at IVC as a full-time student and is showing no signs of academically slowing down, despite her achievement. “There are still so many classes I want to take,” she said excitedly.
“I am signed up for more history and music classes over the summer, I have started on calculus and I think there are probably at least 30 more classes I really want to take before I am ready to commit to another major,” Athena revealed.
