A teenager in China performed so well in a math competition that she beat AI – as did students at prestigious universities including MIT, Stanford and Princeton.
The outpouring of support and shock for the 17-year-old fashion design student was fueled by her humble academic background. Vocational schools in China are not known for academic rigor, and of the thousands of participants, Jiang Ping was the only one who came from a vocational school, state media reported.
Jiang finished 12th in the final qualifying round of the Alibaba Global Math Competition, a well-known and highly competitive math competition, and secured his spot among the 801 global finalists for the eight-hour final test on Saturday.
The qualifying phase ended last Saturday, lasting 48 hours and was carried out online with multiple choice and essay questions.
No AI teams qualified for the finals, organizers said in a post on the Chinese social media platform Weixin.
Jiang Zemin’s victory generated ardent supporters. A hashtag about her had garnered 17 million views as of Saturday. “In a life not defined by others, anyone can be an underdog,” the hashtag said in Chinese.
The contest includes questions on applied mathematics, probability and algebra.
Jiang, a fashion design student from east China’s Jiangsu province, and her performance impressed several Chinese universities who took to social media to congratulate her.
“Congratulations to Jiang Ping! Anyone who has a dream is incredible!” Zhejiang University, a prestigious school in eastern China, wrote in a post on Weibo.
Final results will be announced in August and winners will receive up to $30,000 in cash prizes.
Working in advanced math “awakens my desire to explore,” she said in a interview posted by the organizers which gathered over 4 million views, with the majority of viewers expressing their amazement at the results and questioning whether it was real.
“People who can see the beauty in math and physics are often at the next level,” wrote one user. “We must protect and nurture them.”
As a sign of Jiang’s rising star, fans went so far as to visit her parents’ home in a village in Jiangsu province along China’s east coast, bringing gifts of alcohol and money to show their support. Malls in her hometown hung pictures of her on the walls.
Jiang also defeated his own teacher, Wang Runqiu, who ranked 125th in the competition.
State media People’s Daily reported Wang encouraged her to participate in the contest and was quoted as saying, “I want to help young people as much as possible and let them know that they can have a different future.”
Mathematics was his “hobby,” Jiang said in the interview with organizers, and said he didn’t think he even deserved to participate in the competition. She now plans to study at a good university, she said.
“If studying fashion design is my plan A, then exploring the world of mathematics is my plan B,” she said. “I hope my plan B can be seen.”
Despite having obtained sufficiently high marks on the secondary school entrance exam, the Communist Party secretary for her current vocational school told state media that she went there because her older sister and good friends were also students at the school.
The competition began in 2018 and is open to all mathematics enthusiasts, regardless of their background, and this year was the first time that AI teams were able to participate.
“No matter what the future holds, this interest will continue,” Jiang said.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews. with.
This article was originally published in TODAY. with
