arXiv AI

Post-Training Language Models for Gold-Medal Performance in Coding Competitions

The paper reports a specialized training pipeline for large language models to excel in competitive programming, combining problem curation, synthetic reasoning traces, supervised fine‑tuning, and reinforcement learning. Using 22,000 curated problems, the authors train two models—Nemotron‑3‑Nano‑CC (30B) and Nemotron‑3‑Ultra‑CC (550B)—and introduce GenCorrect, a test‑time refinement strategy. On the IOI 2025 benchmark, Nano‑CC scores 468 points with GenCorrect, surpassing the gold‑medal threshold, while Ultra‑CC reaches 502; in IOI 2026, a competition‑specific Ultra‑CC system scores 535.4, exceeding both the gold threshold and the top human score of 498.27, marking the first AI system to outscore the highest‑scoring human contestant on an IOI problem set.

arXiv AI
Jun 26

NebulaExp-8B: An Empirical Post-Training Pipeline via Full-Scale Ablation Research

arXiv:2606. 26671v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Post-training alignment determines the reasoning and human preference following capabilities of large language models, yet most existing works withhold detailed data construction, filtering rules and training recipes, which hinders community reproducibility and lightweight model optimization.

By Qiaobo Hao, Yangqian Wu, Shunyi Wang, Zhongjian Zhang, Ziqun Li, Yayin He, Muqing Li, Chen Zhong
arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 5

SUPERNOVA: Eliciting General Reasoning in LLMs with Reinforcement Learning on Natural Instructions

arXiv:2604. 08477v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Rewards (RLVR) has substantially improved reasoning in formal domains such as mathematics and code, but extending these gains beyond STEM remains challenging.

By Ashima Suvarna, Kendrick Phan, Mehrab Beikzadeh, Hritik Bansal, Saadia Gabriel
arXiv Machine Learning
3d ago

X-Coder: Advancing Competitive Programming with Synthetic Tasks, Solutions, and Tests

The paper introduces X-Coder, a competitive programming model trained entirely on synthetic tasks, verified solutions, and reliable test cases, eliminating the need for real-world data in post‑training. A dual‑verification strategy is used to reduce noise in solutions and test outputs, providing high‑quality reward signals for reinforcement learning. X‑Coder‑14B achieves significant performance gains, scoring 67.5% on LiveCodeBench v5 and 63.4% on v6, surpassing its base model by over 40 points.

By Jie Wu, Haoling Li, Xin Zhang, Jiani Guo, Jane Luo, Xuewei Yang, Steven Liu, Yangyu Huang, Ruihang Chu, Scarlett Li, Yujiu Yang
arXiv AI
3d ago

ScienceArena: Benchmarking LLMs on Latest Scientific Olympiad Competitions

arXiv:2608.30517v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Benchmark saturation and data contamination increasingly obscure genuine scientific reasoning in frontier LLMs. We introduce \textsc{ScienceArena}, an...

By Guangxiang Zhao, Qilong Shi, Xusen Xiao, Wenpu Liu, Yaoming Li, Linfeng Hao, Shuyang Hou, Zijian Guo, Xinrui Zhang, Yuntian Zhao, Zhengyang Wang, Wenrui Liu, Yuhan Wu, Tong Yang, Lin Sun, Xiangzheng Zhang