TWO Malaysian doctoral students have put the country on the artificial intelligence (AI) map after clinching first place in an international object detection challenge at the world’s largest image processing conference.

Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) students Wong Yi Jie and Tan Jing Jie, both pursuing doctorates in engineering at Lee Kong Chian Faculty of Engineering and Science (LKC FES), emerged champions of Cityscape Aerial Image Dataset for Object Detection (Cadot) Challenge 2025.

The event was held in Anchorage, Alaska in the US, as part of the prestigious Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP) 2025.

Organised in collaboration with Université Sorbonne Paris Nord (USPN), Laboratoire de Traitement et Transport de l’Information (L2TI) and French high-tech enterprise COSE, the Cadot challenge drew top researchers worldwide to solve the demanding task of detecting objects in dense urban environments using high-resolution aerial imagery.

Guided by supervisors Assoc Prof Dr Tham Mau Luen, Assoc Prof Dr Kwan Ban Hoe and Assoc Prof Dr Hum Yan Chai, the duo presented their paper, “Tri-Axial Scaling in Aerial Object Detection: Model Size, Dataset Size and Quality, and Test-Time Inference”.

Drawing inspiration from scaling laws and test-time adaptation techniques from large language models, their framework effectively balanced model scaling, dataset quality and test-time inference, ultimately setting a new benchmark in aerial object detection research.

Although Wong and Tan did not attend the conference, their research stood out among international competitors, earning them the championship title and cash prize of €1,000 (RM4,940) alongside a certificate of recognition.

“Winning this championship is deeply meaningful as it validates our contributions and motivates us to continue pushing the boundaries of our work,” said Wong, who served as team leader.

Tan said: “This is my first global academic championship and I am truly honoured.

“It is an important milestone in my journey as a researcher, inspiring me to make a broader contribution to the field.”