Competing at the Asia-Pacific regional level for the first time, the ACM ICPC teams from National Economics University (NEU) delivered outstanding performances to secure an overall ranking of 16th at the ICPC Asia Pacific Championship 2025 finals, an international collegiate programming contest held from February 27 to March 2, 2025, in Singapore.

The ICPC Asia Pacific Championship 2025 competition area at the National University of Singapore

The international programming contest “ICPC Asia Pacific Championship 2025” took place in Singapore, bringing together 65 outstanding teams from leading universities across the region, including South Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam and many other countries.

This was an important round in which teams competed intensely for places at the “ICPC World Finals 2025,” scheduled to take place in Baku, Azerbaijan, in September 2025.

The contest took place in person over five hours, from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on March 1, with a publicly accessible scoreboard and a parallel global competition on Codeforces using the same problem set. During the five-hour contest, teams had to complete 13 algorithmic problems ranging from difficult to very difficult.

Under ICPC Asia Pacific rules, the Regional champions qualify for the ICPC World Finals: Screenwalkers from the University of Tokyo, which won a “double” championship in Japan and Taiwan; Daxinhao from Seoul National University, which won in South Korea; std_abs from National Taiwan University, which won in Jakarta; and fruit_advantages from National Taiwan University, which won in Hanoi. However, the two teams from National Taiwan University had to compete for a single World Finals place in this contest.

Vietnam was represented by 12 teams from the following universities: VNU University of Engineering and Technology, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, with three teams—IBM Cloud, Azure and Heroku; the University of Information Technology, Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City, with three teams—UIT.KHQ.TheUnkillableDemonKings, UIT.KNT.2mic1cup and UIT.TTT.Baka; National Economics University, with two teams—NEU.gugugaga and NEU.THQ; the University of Science and Technology, the University of Danang, with BKDN.Arcane; Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City, with HCMUT FieryFirefly; the University of Science, Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City, with HCMUS – AtCoder; and Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and Education, with Make HCMUTE Great. In addition, one team from Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) and one team from the University of Melbourne (Australia), both comprising Vietnamese students, also participated in these finals.

NEU’s two teams participating in ICPC Asia Pacific 2025

NEU’s two teams consisted primarily of students from the Faculty of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, College of Technology. Despite competing for the first time, NEU.gugugaga delivered an outstanding performance by solving Problem F, rated at a difficulty of 4.5*—a problem that only seven teams in the contest solved. The team ranked 16th on the list for World Finals selection and had as much as a 90% chance of appearing at the ICPC World Finals. NEU ranked third among the universities from Vietnam.

The leading places went to universities with considerable strengths and established traditions in natural sciences and technology at the regional and international levels, including universities in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Singapore. With its 16th-place ranking, NEU has strong hopes of qualifying for the first time for the highest level of the world’s most prestigious programming contest. Featuring more than 100 of the best teams from Asia, Europe, the Americas and other regions, the contest will take place this September in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Top 25 overall

Article and photos: Department of Political Affairs and Student Management and Department of Communications

This is an automated translation. If you notice any errors, please contact the Department of Communications, National Economics University at phongtruyenthong@neu.edu.vn.