Melania Trump’s student AI competition gets rebranded as SI Presidential Challenge

Melania Trump’s annual artificial intelligence (AI) competition for students is getting rebranded with President Trump’s preferred name of super intelligence (SI).

The first lady appeared in a video to launch the 2027 Presidential Super Intelligence Challenge on Tuesday.

“The largest initiative in America’s education began with one bold idea,” Trump said, “prepare America’s next generation to lead the world in the most transformative technology of our time: super intelligence.”

“America’s next groundbreaking idea is already sitting in a classroom,” Trump said.

“We must give our children the knowledge, tools, and opportunities to bring those ideas to life,” she said in a statement announcing the second annual challenge.

As part of the effort, students are to complete projects that involve “the study, development, or use of an SI method or tool to address community challenges” while educators “will focus on creative approaches to teaching or using SI technologies in K-12 learning.”

Trump said that more than 20,000 students in kindergarten through 12 th grade and from across the country, participated in last year’s inaugural initiative , which was then-called the Presidential Artificial Intelligence Challenge.

The president said last month that he aimed to officially rebrand AI as SI.

“The use of the word ‘artificial’ makes intelligence sound fake,” Donald Trump said in September, before signing an order that all official U.S. documents would use the SI term going forward.

In her announcement about this year’s challenge, Melania Trump said that all schools that participate in the initiative will have a chance to earn an official mark called the First Lady Seal of SI Readiness.

The seal, an announcement from the first lady’s press office said, “recognizes schools that are taking meaningful steps to prepare students and educators to understand, use, and responsibly engage with super intelligence.”