Three from ALGO ARTIS to Compete in "AtCoder World Tour Finals 2026 Heuristic," the World's Foremost Competitive Programming Competition

Three members from ALGO ARTIS—Matsuo (Principal Algorithm Engineer / 2025 World Championship Runner-up), Kajiwara, and Kitahara—have been selected as finalists for the Heuristic division of the "AtCoder World Tour Finals 2026" (AWTF, Organizer: AtCoder Inc.), the world's premier competitive programming competition, scheduled to be held on July 7-8, 2026. They are among only 12 finalists chosen globally.

About AtCoder World Tour Finals 2026 Heuristic

The "AtCoder World Tour Finals" is an invitation-only global tournament held annually by the competitive programming platform "AtCoder." It features two divisions: Algorithm and Heuristic. Both divisions are known as the world's top competitive programming events, allowing only the top 12 performers of the year to participate.

The Heuristic division, where the three ALGO ARTIS members will compete, challenges participants to design and implement algorithms that find better solutions within limited time for problems that are difficult to solve optimally.

Human vs. AI Exhibition Match

Following last year's event, an "Human vs. AI Exhibition Match" against an AI agent sponsored by OpenAI will be held. A special award, the "Humanity Prevails Award," will be presented to the player who defeats the AI and wins the tournament.

Three from ALGO ARTIS, including last year's World No. 2 Matsuo, to Compete

In the "AtCoder World Tour Finals 2025 Heuristic" held in 2025, our own Matsuo achieved a second-place finish globally.

For the 2026 competition, Matsuo will be joined by Kajiwara and Kitahara, making a total of three participants.

Matsuo Mitsuru (terry_u16 / rank: 9)

Principal Algorithm Engineer, ALGO ARTIS

I am deeply honored to be able to participate in the AWTF, the pinnacle event for competitive programmers, for the second consecutive year. While AI has grown significantly over the past year, humans have also evolved. I believe we can showcase a different kind of battle compared to a year ago. Last year I was the runner-up, but this year I will give my all with the aim of winning.

Kajiwara Kengo (MathGorilla / rank: 11)

Competing in the AWTF has been one of my major goals. I am extremely pleased to be able to stand on that stage. I will not be satisfied here and will challenge with all my might, aiming for victory. I am also looking forward to the exhibition match against OpenAI. I want to demonstrate my full capabilities to entertain the audience.

Kitahara Hiroaki (eijirou / rank: 2)

I am excited to compete against the world's top players on the ultimate stage of the AWTF. With the valuable opportunity of the exhibition match against OpenAI, I want to deliver a performance that meets expectations as a human player.

* ( ) indicate AtCoder handle name / seed order based on AtCoder points.

Competition Overview

Competition Name: AtCoder World Tour Finals 2026 Heuristic

Dates: July 7 (Tue) - 8 (Wed), 2026

Official Website: https://info.atcoder.jp/more/contents/awtf/2026

Competition Page: https://atcoder.jp/contests/awtf2026heuristic

Live Broadcast: Scheduled to start at 9:00 AM on July 8, 2026 (Wed)

Japanese Broadcast: https://www.youtube.com/live/W0E3fNvhuVQ

English Broadcast: https://www.youtube.com/live/R9DAkDF5gIs

ALGO ARTIS and Competitive Programming

ALGO ARTIS, with its vision of "Optimizing Social Infrastructure," is engaged in optimizing various planning tasks that support social infrastructure, including production planning, vessel scheduling, railway maintenance planning, and bus crew scheduling.

The search and optimization algorithms and advanced problem-solving skills cultivated through competitive programming are core technologies for the "Planning DX" that our company provides. We connect the technical skills honed in world-class competitions to real-world problem-solving, delivering value across a wide range of fields such as manufacturing, logistics, energy, and transportation.

Company Name: ALGO ARTIS Inc. Representative: Kentaro Nagata, President and CEO Established: July 2021 Location: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo URL: https://www.algo-artis.com/