First Lady Melania Trump on Tuesday launched the 2027 Presidential Super Intelligence Challenge, the second round of a national contest for K-12 students and educators, and opened it this year to entire schools. A school that completes a set of readiness milestones and submits evidence of its work can earn a new First Lady Seal of SI Readiness.
"America's next groundbreaking idea is already sitting in a classroom," the first lady said in the White House announcement. "We must give our children the knowledge, tools, and opportunities to bring those ideas to life."
The first year's contest was known as the Presidential AI Challenge. The new name follows an executive order President Trump signed on Sept. 29 that directs government documents, public statements and agency materials to use "Super Intelligence" in place of the technology's older name, often shortened to AI, The National News Desk reported. The contest's official program site says the order made that change across the executive branch to recognize "the continuously advancing technological frontier," and that the contest will be called the Presidential SI Challenge from now on.
The White House described the seal's milestones as rigorous and said the designation recognizes schools that are "taking meaningful steps to prepare students and educators to understand, use, and responsibly engage with super intelligence." According to the program site, the milestones range in difficulty, each mixing complex and simple tasks, and are meant to help a school establish or demonstrate what the site calls a posture of "SI readiness."
The White House said the project-based competition will continue. Students will build projects that study, develop or apply an SI method or tool to tackle problems in their communities, while educators will design ways to teach with or about the technology in K-12 classrooms. Registration is open through Dec. 18.
"America's future security, prosperity, and global leadership depend on our next generation," the first lady said. "Building on last year's success, the 2027 Presidential Super Intelligence Challenge will empower our children to lead the world."
The contest grew out of an executive order on AI education that Trump signed in April 2025, and registration for the first round opened that August. By the White House's count, the inaugural challenge drew more than 20,000 students from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and 49 Department of Defense Education Activity schools in 10 countries. In June, the first lady honored six national champion teams at the White House. Their projects ranged from a homework helper by an elementary school team in Tennessee to a low-cost navigation framework for visually impaired people in complex urban settings, the work of a Pennsylvania high school student.
The first round also drew skepticism. A CalMatters report published in March found that a handful of California districts, Anaheim Union High School District among them, moved quickly to encourage participation, while the state's two largest school systems, Los Angeles Unified and San Diego Unified, had no plans to take part and some districts had not heard of the contest. The report said the government was offering districts no additional resources. Christian Pinedo, who leads external affairs for aiEDU, a nonprofit focused on equity in AI education, told the outlet the contest was "for sure a marketing move from the White House" and "an inequitable marketing move."
Jeremy Roschelle of the nonprofit Digital Promise, speaking to Education Week as the first contest opened, called it "a nice way to avoid being top down and prescriptive." He also pointed to its limits. "If you want to create AI literacy at a certain level for every single student and teacher in America, you can't do that through a challenge," he said.