Sep 15, 2026 · 13 min · 8 segments
AI is getting so good at maths that it is now tackling, and apparently solving, some of the hardest mathematical problems that exist. But as huge companies like OpenAI and Anthropic race to outdo each…
Cam WilsonGuestJonathan WebbHostA few months ago on Lab Notes, we covered some of the progress that AI was making in maths.
Since then, the area's only got bigger, the temperature's gone up, and last week, OpenAI took it up another level.
Yeah, so OpenAI, which is one of the leading AI companies, announced that it believed it had a solution to, uh, one of the Millennium Prize problems.
For those of you who don't have those on your, on your fridge, um, those are one of seven extremely difficult and consequential mathematic problems that come with a million-dollar prize for coming up with a, a proof.
They, uh, said that they had essentially [laughs] been s- working on it for not that long, like, you know, not, not much more than, like, a, a week or two.
That they had, um, thrown a lot of its AI, a lot of its computing power at one of the problems, the, uh, Navier–Stokes problems, which is a, kind of about the understanding of, like, a, a proof that is about predicting and understanding how fluids move.
Like, people use it every day, but they have to use it approximately, and I think this proof is about trying to nail it down.
And, and, like, you know, these things are actually consequential because, you know, fluid mechanics and stuff, uh, is, is affecting all kinds of things when you gotta, I guess, like, transport fluids and all these, [laughs] so.
So very, very important, and coming up with a solution to this would take it from something that I, I kind of approximate to something that becomes more specific.
And even in their announcement, it seemed a little bit, I don't know, like they were just bigfooting something, right? They said, this was on Tuesday, the 1st of September, "We heard rumors that two Millennium Prize problems had been resolved."
"Inspired by these rumors and by basically how good our models are now, we deployed 10,000 AI agents over about 88 hours," and just basically got the biggest hammer possible to hit the nail with.
It's very, uh, like, dilettante, being like, "You know what? I heard you guys had this little maths thing you're working on, so I thought, why not? We got out the legal pad, you know, poured a couple cups of coffee for us and our machines, and set it at it."
A few months ago on Lab Notes, we covered some of the progress that AI was making in maths.
Since then, the area's only got bigger, the temperature's gone up, and last week, OpenAI took it up another level.
Yeah, so OpenAI, which is one of the leading AI companies, announced that it believed it had a solution to, uh, one of the Millennium Prize problems.
For those of you who don't have those on your, on your fridge, um, those are one of seven extremely difficult and consequential mathematic problems that come with a million-dollar prize for coming up with a, a proof.
They, uh, said that they had essentially [laughs] been s- working on it for not that long, like, you know, not, not much more than, like, a, a week or two.
That they had, um, thrown a lot of its AI, a lot of its computing power at one of the problems, the, uh, Navier–Stokes problems, which is a, kind of about the understanding of, like, a, a proof that is about predicting and understanding how fluids move.
Like, people use it every day, but they have to use it approximately, and I think this proof is about trying to nail it down.
And, and, like, you know, these things are actually consequential because, you know, fluid mechanics and stuff, uh, is, is affecting all kinds of things when you gotta, I guess, like, transport fluids and all these, [laughs] so.
So very, very important, and coming up with a solution to this would take it from something that I, I kind of approximate to something that becomes more specific.
And even in their announcement, it seemed a little bit, I don't know, like they were just bigfooting something, right? They said, this was on Tuesday, the 1st of September, "We heard rumors that two Millennium Prize problems had been resolved."
"Inspired by these rumors and by basically how good our models are now, we deployed 10,000 AI agents over about 88 hours," and just basically got the biggest hammer possible to hit the nail with.
It's very, uh, like, dilettante, being like, "You know what? I heard you guys had this little maths thing you're working on, so I thought, why not? We got out the legal pad, you know, poured a couple cups of coffee for us and our machines, and set it at it."
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