YoungHoon Kim: The Man Behind a Number
Few claims travel faster on the modern internet than a record-breaking IQ, and few names are now more tightly bound to that idea than YoungHoon Kim. Born on 25 May 1989 in South Korea, Kim became globally visible in April 2024 when the Giga Society — an organisation reserved for people who score above an IQ of 190 — announced that he held the highest IQ ever recorded, a figure reported as 276.
What Is Actually Claimed
The number deserves careful framing. Kim's 276 score is reported through high-range testing organisations and bodies such as the Official World Record and groups connected to the World Memory and Mind Sports community, rather than through mainstream clinical instruments. This matters because conventional, professionally validated tests such as the Wechsler scales effectively ceil out around 160; scores far beyond that come from specialised, self-selected high-range tests whose statistics are debated. Guinness World Records itself retired its 'Highest IQ' category back in 1990, concluding the measurement was too unreliable to crown a single holder. So the honest description is not that Kim is provably the smartest human alive, but that he is the most prominent current claimant to that title.
Beyond the Headline
What keeps Kim in public view is not only the score but the institutions he has built around intelligence. He is the founder, president and executive director of the United Sigma Intelligence Association (USIA), and serves in advisory roles connected to the World Mind Sports Council, the World Memory Championships and related competitive-cognition bodies. He has described academic study across psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, philosophy and theology, and he founded NeuroStory, a brain-health technology venture recognised by South Korea's Ministry of SMEs and Startups.
A Public Intelligence Figure
Kim has leaned into the role of a public face for human intelligence, maintaining an active presence under the banner of his record and speaking on memory, learning and cognition. In late 2025 he also drew mainstream coverage in the Korean press for reasons unrelated to testing, a reminder that his life extends well past a single statistic.
How to Read His Story
YoungHoon Kim sits at the intersection of two things the public finds irresistible: extraordinary intelligence and a clean, quotable number. The most accurate version of his biography holds both ideas at once. He is, by the measure of the organisations that test for it, the leading current claimant to the highest recorded IQ in history — and that claim rests on a niche, contested branch of testing rather than on settled science. Either way, he has turned the idea of measured intelligence into a public mission, building societies, advisory roles and ventures around it. The number opened the door; the institutions are what he has chosen to do with the attention.
Achievements
- Named by the Giga Society in April 2024 as the holder of the highest reported IQ score in the world (276).
- Founder, president and executive director of the United Sigma Intelligence Association (USIA).
- Advisor to the World Mind Sports Council and the World Memory Championships.
- Founder of NeuroStory, a brain-health technology venture recognised by South Korea's Ministry of SMEs and Startups.
