# Sakana AI — Sakana AI Agent Wins AtCoder Heuristic Contest (First AI to Place 1st)

- Company: Sakana AI (sakana.ai)
- Announced: 2026-01-04T15:00:00+00:00
- Category: research-paper
- Subject: Sakana models
- Source: https://sakana.ai/ahc058
- Record: https://forck.live/items/4702-sakana-ai-agent-wins-atcoder-heuristic-contest-first-ai-to-place-1st

Sakana AI's ALE-Agent achieved 1st place in the AtCoder Heuristic Contest 058, outperforming 804 human participants, marking the first known instance of an AI agent winning a major optimization programming contest in real-time. The agent operated at a cost of approximately $1,300 and autonomously discovered a novel algorithm.

## Evidence

Verbatim from https://sakana.ai/ahc058:

> Sakana AI’s “ALE-Agent” achieved a historic milestone by securing 1st place in the AtCoder Heuristic Contest 058 , outperforming 804 human participants.

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Record: https://forck.live/items/4702-sakana-ai-agent-wins-atcoder-heuristic-contest-first-ai-to-place-1st
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