IJCAI 2026 AI Olympics — Double Pendulum Challenge
The 4th AI Olympics at IJCAI 2026 challenges teams to develop and benchmark controllers for swinging up and stabilising a double pendulum from any configuration on real hardware. Reproducible benchmark on standardised physical hardware.
IJCAI is one of the oldest AI conferences — placing well here carries strong signal value in academic and research hiring.
The AI Olympics at IJCAI is a reproducible hardware benchmark competition — participants train controllers that are tested on real physical hardware, not just simulation. The 2026 edition uses the double pendulum (also called the acrobot), a classic underactuated control problem.
Challenge:
- Develop a controller that swings up and stabilises a double pendulum from any starting configuration
- Train on real hardware provided by RealAIGym
- Compete against baseline controllers and other teams
Why it matters: Unlike simulation competitions, this tests real-world robustness — noise, friction, and hardware variability are part of the evaluation.
Submission deadline: June 1, 2026
Top teams present results at IJCAI 2026.