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Tue, 08 Sep 2026

Tue, 08 Sep 2026 OpenAI says it cracked 90-year-old maths problem in 88 hours

OpenAI's claim that it solved parts of Navier-Stokes equations has quickly stirred controversy.
OpenAI has claimed to have solved a decades-old math problem, specifically the Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness problem, using a new AI model and 10,000 AI agents. According to OpenAI, this solution was achieved in just 88 hours, which is significantly faster than human mathematicians had been able to achieve. The company stated that its AI model was "significantly more capable" than previous models and was used to attempt to solve several notable math problems simultaneously. As a result of the solution, OpenAI's researchers claim to have made substantial progress in their understanding of turbulence, a phenomenon that is still not well understood. However, some controversy has arisen over OpenAI's method and timing, with one mathematician claiming that he had already been working on the problem using OpenAI's tool Codex before OpenAI announced its solution.