Liu Jiawei (刘家炜) is a Chinese competitive programmer from Chongqing Bashu Secondary School. He came to informatics through a school programming interest group and worked upward through China's competition ladder, which starts with the CSP-J/S entry contests and progresses through NOIP to the National Olympiad in Informatics.
As a freshman in 2024 he won an NOI silver medal. In 2025 he took NOI gold and secured early admission to Peking University — the standard reward in China for reaching the top of the national informatics ladder before graduation.
He was selected for China's four-member IOI national team in February 2026, following the winter training camp that decides the squad.
At the 38th International Olympiad in Informatics, held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, from 9 to 16 August 2026, he scored 409.56 out of a possible 600 and finished 13th in the world, comfortably clearing the 361.12-point gold cut-off. Chinese reports give the dates as 9–15 August; the official IOI statistics site gives 9–16 August.
His was the first IOI gold medal ever won by a student from Chongqing, a result reported by China National Radio and the municipality's official news portal. China's four-member team took three golds and one silver, with the overall Grand Prize going to his compatriot Xu Qiwen on 498.27 points.
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Liu Jiawei | 🇨🇳 China | Gold, 38th IOI — Chongqing's first ever, 409.56 points | 13th in the world |
| Xu Qiwen | 🇨🇳 China | IOI 2026 Grand Prize, 498.27 points | 1st in the world |
| Rayhona Tuymuradova | 🇺🇿 Uzbekistan | Gold, 58th International Chemistry Olympiad | 27th in the world |
| Ruth Kozlovsky | 🇮🇱 Israel | Gold, 56th International Physics Olympiad | 10th grade |
Liu Jiawei matters because China's informatics ladder is arguably the most competitive selection funnel in any academic discipline: four places on the IOI team, chosen from a national contest population in the hundreds of thousands. Reaching it as a student from Chongqing rather than one of the traditional coastal powerhouses, and clearing the gold cut-off by nearly fifty points, is what makes the medal a municipal first rather than a routine national result.
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