**Human Team Solves Unsolvable Problem… Proving ‘Abstract Reasoning’ Capability, Making Big Strides in AGI Development**
“Google has won a gold medal at a world-renowned computing programming competition by showcasing its artificial intelligence (AI), ‘Gemini’. This marks an earnest effort to conquer the ‘abstract reasoning’ ability once considered unique to humans.”
According to Google DeepMind’s official blog on the 18th, the company’s AI model ‘Gemini 2.5 Deep Think’ participated in the ‘2025 International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) World Final’ held on the 4th in Baku, Azerbaijan. ‘Gemini’ solved 10 out of 12 problems within the 5-hour time limit, achieving a gold medal level performance.
‘Gemini’s result placed it at second overall when compared to 139 university teams participating in the competition. It showcased overwhelming speed by solving 8 problems within the first 45 minutes of the competition. Notably, it solved the ‘Problem C’ that no human teams could tackle, demonstrating AI’s potential. This problem was a high-difficulty task requiring the exploration of near-infinite scenarios.
‘Gemini’ used complex algorithms like ‘minimax theorem’ and ‘dynamic programming’ to find the optimal solution. It tackled the problems by having multiple AI agents propose and verify solutions, improving iteratively. This achievement is the culmination of Google’s AI technology, including pre-training, post-training, reinforcement learning, and multi-step reasoning. It follows a gold medal win at the International Mathematical Olympiad two months prior.
Analyses suggest that all problems could have been solved if AI and human experts collaborated. The abstract reasoning ability demonstrated is expected to be applied in various industries, such as drug development and semiconductor design, in the future.
Bill Poucher, ICPC Global Executive Director, stated, “Gemini’s participation and gold-medal-level results in this field define the next generation of AI tools and academic standards,” and added, “This research will help foster a digital renaissance for everyone.”