OpenAI says it cracked 90-year-old maths problem in 88 hours

OpenAI says it has found a solution to a decades-old advanced maths problem in a matter of hours using a new artificial intelligence (AI) model and thousands of AI bots.

The ChatGPT-maker said on Tuesday , external that by focusing a group of roughly 10,000 AI agents, or AI bots that undertake tasks somewhat autonomously, it solved a notoriously difficult maths problem in just 88 hours.

The problem was part of the Navier-Stokes equations , external , which concern how fluids move. For 90 years important aspects of the problems have lacked a proof, the argument underlying a correct math equation.

OpenAI called the solution which it found a "milestone" and evidence that AI tools are improving quickly.

OpenAI's solution has yet to be verified independently or publicly accepted by The Clay Mathematics Institute, a maths organization based in the US which runs the Millennium Prize that offers big money to the first to solve certain mathematical conundrums.

The company said that at the end of August, it started to train a new model that quickly showed that it was adept at maths. AI models are computer programs trained on huge amounts of data to recognize and predict patterns in information.

While the new OpenAI model remains a tool only used within the company, as it is "significantly more capable" than the company's most recent AI model release, its researchers decided to use it on certain notable advanced maths problems.

OpenAI admitted that last week on 1 September, it had "heard rumors that two Millennium Prize problems had been resolved" and so decided to put thousands of AI bots trained on the new internal model to work attempting to solve some of the remaining problems.