AI systems from Google and OpenAI soar at global maths competition
To OpenAI researchers, it is another clear sign AI models can command extensive reasoning capabilities that could expand into areas beyond maths.
The optimism is shared by Google researchers, who believe AI models' capabilities can apply to research quandaries in other fields such as physics, said Jung, who won an IMO gold medal as a student in 2003.
Of the 630 students participating in the 66th IMO on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia, 67 contestants, or about 11%, achieved gold medal scores. Google's DeepMind AI unit last year achieved a silver medal score using AI systems specialised for maths. This year, Google used a general-purpose model called Gemini Deep Think, a version of which was previously unveiled at its annual developer conference in May.
Unlike previous AI attempts that relied on formal languages and lengthy computation, Google's approach this year operated entirely in natural language and solved the problems within the official 4.5-hour time limit, the company said in a blog post. OpenAI, which has its own set of reasoning models, similarly built an experimental version for the competition, according to a post by researcher Alexander Wei on social media platform X. He noted the company does not plan to release anything with this level of maths capability for several months.
This year marked the first time the competition coordinated officially with some AI developers, who have for years used prominent maths competitions such as IMO to test model capabilities. IMO judges certified the results of the companies, including Google, and asked them to publish results on July 28.
"We respected the IMO board's original request that all AI labs share their results only after the official results had been verified by independent experts and the students had rightly received the acclamation they deserved," Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said on X on Monday.
OpenAI, which published its results on Saturday and first claimed gold medal status, said in an interview it had permission from an IMO board member to do so after the closing ceremony on Saturday.
The competition on Monday allowed cooperating companies to publish results, said Gregor Dolinar, president of IMO's board.
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