North Korea has announced it won't attend the upcoming international collegiate programming contest in the United States without elaborating on the reasons, a US broadcaster said Thursday.

The contest refers to the 41st Annual World Finals of the Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest set for May 20-25 in Rapid City, South Dakota. The ACM is the world's largest educational and scientific society, uniting computing educators, researchers and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources and address the field's challenges.

"The Pyongyang office in charge of an ACM-ICPC preliminary contest in North Korea recently notified that it would not send students to the event this year," Radio Free Asia said, citing an ACM spokesperson.

The North has already been disqualified from the contest as it did not inform the association of the results of the preliminary contest, which it held at Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang in November, the broadcaster said.

According to North Korean news media's earlier reports, some 120 students from 28 universities across the nation competed in the local contest, with teams from Kim Il-sung University, Kim Chaek University of Technology and the University of Natural Science securing the top three posts in order.

In the previous finals in Thailand in May, a Kim Il-sung University team was ranked 28th, along with South Korea's KAIST team.

The team-based programming competition was launched in 1977, with the communist country beginning to attend it several years ago. (Yonhap)