What is ICAIC?
The International Collegiate Artificial Intelligence Contest is an invitation-only, Olympiad-style competition organized by the School of Computing at the National University of Singapore (NUS). It brings together teams from universities around the world to solve practical AI problems using real industry data.
The competition itself comes in two parts:
Individual Competition
Solve AI tasks on your own, testing algorithm design, machine learning, model optimisation, data analysis, and AI engineering.
Team Competition
Work with your two teammates to tackle a larger, real-world AI challenge from start to finish.
The Department of Computer Science has been invited to send a team, and the students selected will take part in both events.
Competitors are given cloud GPU resources, datasets, a development environment, and an evaluation platform, so everyone works on equal footing. The organizers publish a syllabus describing the topics in scope.
Topics in scope
Why apply?
Compete internationally
Test yourself against some of the strongest AI students from universities around the world.
A free week in Singapore
The Department of Computer Science funds your travel to Singapore, and NUS covers your accommodation while you are there.
Meet the field
Connect with AI researchers, industry partners, and students from around the world during the programme.
Build real skills
Work on hard, open-ended problems with real data under time pressure, which is excellent experience for research and industry.
Eligibility & requirements
To be considered, you must:
- Be a registered undergraduate student in the Faculty of Arts & Science (St. George campus), enrolled in a computer science program (Computer Science Specialist, Major, or Minor, or Data Science Specialist) or in the First-Year Computer Science admission category (CMP1)
- Remain enrolled through December 2026
- Be available to travel to Singapore for the full competition week, December 6–12, 2026
- Be willing to compete in both the individual and team events
- Be able to meet for a few hours each week for training, if you are selected
- Take responsibility for making sure you can legally participate and travel, including a valid passport and any visa you may need for Singapore
- Complete the University's Safety Abroad requirements before departure, if you are selected
Selection
We are selecting three students through a short, four-stage process.
-
STEP 1
Application
closes Fri, Oct 9 -
STEP 2
Qualifier
Fri, Oct 16 or Sat, Oct 17 -
STEP 3
Interview
Tue, Oct 20 or Thu, Oct 22 -
STEP 4
Selection
by Fri, Oct 23
1. Application
Fill out the application form by Friday, October 9. It asks for:
- Your name, university email, student number, and UTORid
- Your program (or CMP1 admission category) and year of study
- Whether you are available to travel to Singapore for December 6–12, 2026
- Which qualifier day (October 16 or 17) and interview day (October 20 or 22) work for you
- Confirmation that you are responsible for making sure you can legally take part, including travel documents, and that you will complete the University's Safety Abroad requirements if selected
By Sunday, October 11, we will email everyone who is eligible to confirm that they will take part in the qualifier, arrange which of the two days they will attend, and share the time and location.
2. Qualifier
The qualifier runs on two possible dates, Friday, October 16 or Saturday, October 17, and you take part on whichever day fits your schedule. It is a three-hour, in-person contest. You will get a reasonably challenging, Kaggle-style machine learning problem: a dataset, a task, and a clear evaluation metric. Your job is to build the best model you can in the time given.
You will:
- work on departmental computers in a locked-down environment, so you will have nothing to install and nothing to bring;
- be able to submit as often as you like during the three hours, with your submissions graded automatically against hidden test data;
- see a live leaderboard with your score on part of that hidden data, though final rankings will use a separate part that you will not see;
- submit your code along with a short write-up of your approach, which will not be scored on the day, but which we will refer to in the interview if you are shortlisted.
3. Interview
By Sunday, October 18, we will let the top performers from the qualifier know that they have been shortlisted for an interview. Interviews take place the following week, on Tuesday, October 20 or Thursday, October 22, depending on your schedule. Each interview has two parts:
Technical
Your background and experience: relevant courses, projects, research, internships, and your approach in the qualifier.
Behavioural
How you communicate and work in a team. ICAIC's team event depends on three people working well together under pressure.
4. Selection
We will choose the final three students based on the qualifier and the interview together, and let everyone know the outcome by Friday, October 23. The selected team then begins training together.
Before travelling, each selected student must complete the University's Safety Abroad requirements, including the Safety Abroad workshop and registering the trip in the Safety Abroad Registry.
Training
Selection is the beginning, not the end. From the week of October 26 until the competition, the three students on the team meet with us once a week to prepare.
Each session is built around a problem in the same style as the qualifier: a dataset, a task, and an evaluation metric, worked through under time pressure. Over the weeks, the problems cover the range of topics ICAIC draws on, so the team arrives in Singapore having already practised the kind of work the contest asks for.
Sessions also give the three of you time to work as a team, since one of the two ICAIC events is solved together. Expect to commit a few hours a week, including some work between sessions.
FAQ
Do I need to be an AI expert to apply?
No. You should be comfortable writing code and training models (for example, with scikit-learn or PyTorch), but the qualifier is there to find strong problem-solvers, not to check a list of courses.
I'm in first or second year. Should I still apply?
Yes. All undergraduate years are eligible, including first-year students in the First-Year Computer Science admission category (CMP1). Priority may go to third- and fourth-year students, but a strong qualifier result and interview count for a lot.
Can I use my own laptop in the qualifier?
No. To keep things fair, everyone uses the same departmental computers in a locked-down environment. We'll share details about the software available with your qualifier confirmation.
How is the qualifier scored?
Automatically, on hidden test data. The live leaderboard shows only part of the test set, and final rankings use the rest, so focus on building a model that generalizes.
Who pays for the trip?
The Department of Computer Science funds the trip, and NUS covers accommodation in Singapore. We will share the details with the selected students.
Do I need a visa for Singapore?
It depends on your citizenship. Check the requirements from Singapore's Immigration & Checkpoints Authority early, and make sure your passport is valid well past December 2026. Securing the right documents is your responsibility.
What is the Safety Abroad requirement?
The University requires every student travelling outside Canada for a university activity to complete its Safety Abroad requirements before leaving. This includes completing the Safety Abroad workshop and registering your trip in the Safety Abroad Registry. If you are selected, we will help you get this done before December.
Can graduate students apply?
No. This opportunity is for undergraduates only.
Interested?
Fill out the application form by Friday, October 9. We'll be in touch with details about the qualifier.
Questions? Email chandra@cs.toronto.edu