YoungHoon Kim

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.

In the news (15 October 2026): "World's Highest IQ 276 Holder" on God

On 14 October 2026, Marca's English edition put Kim back in the headlines with his declaration on X: "God is real 100% and Jesus is God. - World's Highest IQ 276 Holder." The article repeated that he holds "the highest IQ on the planet" and that he earned the rating "after securing perfect scores across high-intelligence evaluations monitored by the Giga Society." The post first went viral in June 2025, when it passed 14 million views within a day, according to the National Catholic Register as cited by IQ Metrics. His faith is his own business. The number attached to it is the claim we checked.

Bottom line

• The claim: IQ 276, "the highest in the world."
• What 276 is: a score on a stretched scale with a standard deviation of 24. Kim's own organisations state it as "IQ 276 (SD24), equivalent to IQ 210 (SD15)." On the scale clinical tests use, the claim is 210.
• Where it comes from: according to his own United Sigma Intelligence Association, a perfect score on the VNPT-2, a 32-item test by Kirk Raymond Butt. The test is untimed, taken at home, allows references including the internet, and its March 2024 norm table rests on 32 first submissions.
• Geniuses.club verdict: Reported, not verified. The score traces to an unsupervised high-range test, not to a clinical result. No independent body has confirmed it.

Context on the number

A modern IQ is a rarity, not a quantity. 210 on the standard scale sits 7.33 standard deviations above the average of 100. On a normal curve that is about 1 person in 8.9 trillion, more than 1,000 times the population of Earth. A norm group of 32 volunteers cannot place anyone that far out; beyond its last data point a norm table only extends a curve. Clinical tests such as the Wechsler adult scales report up to about 160, and Guinness World Records retired its highest-IQ category in 1990.

Who recognises the title, and who does not

• For: in July 2024 the World Mind Sports Council, organiser of the World Memory Championships, issued a statement "recognising YoungHoon Kim from South Korea as the person with the highest IQ in the world" (The Korea Herald, via Asia News Network). Kim later took advisory roles with the same bodies. GIGA Society Professional, which lists him prominently, defends the score and cites the extended norms of the WISC-V, a children's test that can report up to 210. The score his own organisation lists did not come from the WISC-V.
• Against: in a July 2025 VICE investigation, as summarised by IQ Metrics, the presidents of the World Memory Championships and the World Mind Sports Council said they had not seen evidence of the score; Chris Leek, honorary president of Mensa International, called extrapolating 276 "a nonsense"; and Jason Betts of the World Genius Directory said he did not believe Kim's IQ was above 175. GIGA Society Professional called that article "defamatory and factually inaccurate" and demanded a retraction.
• A name to keep straight: GIGA Society Professional (gigasociety.net) is a different organisation from the Giga Society founded in 1996 by the Dutch test designer Paul Cooijmans. *Correction:* earlier text on this page attributed the 2024 announcement to "the Giga Society." The recognition came from the World Mind Sports Council and from GIGA Society Professional.

Kim's real ability may well be very high; several critics place it in the 160s or 170s. What the record establishes is narrower: 276 is a perfect score on a small, unsupervised test, placed on a stretched scale. For the other 92 famous figures we traced, see [Famous IQ Claims, Fact-Checked](/article/famous-iq-claims-fact-checked).

Questions readers ask

Does YoungHoon Kim really have an IQ of 276? Not in any clinically measured sense. The 276 is on a scale with a standard deviation of 24, equal to 210 on the usual scale, and it comes from a perfect score on a 32-item, untimed, take-home test normed on 32 people.

What is 276 on the normal IQ scale? 210. Subtract 100, divide by 24, multiply by 15 and add 100.

Who has the highest IQ in the world? No one can be verified. Guinness World Records last listed 228, for Marilyn vos Savant, before retiring the category in 1990. Read [The Highest IQ Ever Recorded](/blog/highest-iq-ever-recorded).

Sources

• MARCA, Jorge Gordillo, "World's highest-IQ man reveals where he stands on the existence of God", 14 October 2026: https://www.marca.com/en/lifestyle/world-news/2026/10/14/world-s-highest-iq-man-reveals-where-he-stands-on-the-existence-of-god.html
• IQ Metrics, Elora Mercer, "YoungHoon Kim's 276 IQ Claim: What Test Produced It?", 16 September 2026: https://iqmetrics.org/news/younghoon-kim-276-iq-claim/
• GIGA Society Professional, "Official Statement Regarding the Inaccurate VICE Article on YoungHoon Kim", 22 July 2025: https://gigasociety.net/2025/07/21/official-statement-regarding-the-inaccurate-vice-article-on-younghoon-kim/
• The Korea Herald (via Asia News Network), Song Seung-hyun, "South Korean recognized as person with world's highest IQ", 22 July 2024: https://asianews.network/south-korean-recognized-as-person-with-worlds-highest-iq/

*Corrections: send a documented test result or a source we missed to press@geniuses.club. Updated 15 October 2026 by the Geniuses.club Research Desk.*

Achievements

• Recognised in July 2024 by the World Mind Sports Council as holding the highest reported IQ score in the world (276, equal to 210 on the standard scale); the claim is not independently verified.
• 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.