OpenAI sparks 'mathpocalypse' as it publishes full or partial solutions to 372 outstanding problems

OpenAI has published full or partial solutions to 372 outstanding mathematical problems, stunning mathematicians and forcing them to question the future of the field.

The announcement - which has been described as the "mathpocalypse" - took place on Tuesday.

It comes a month after OpenAI announced a proposed proof for the Navier-Stokes equation, one of seven Millennium Prize Problems which mark the peak of human ambition in the field.

Mathematicians have been taken aback by the speed of mathematical progress in AI, which struggled with GCSE-level maths problems less than two years ago.

The proposed proofs, which are described in 722 papers, are so complex and so numerous that even understanding them poses a gigantic problem for mathematicians, and many have not been verified.

"If you want some sense of what things feel like now in maths, imagine a hunter-gatherer who's spent his entire life learning to survive deep in an unforgiving rainforest, then a giant resort hotel springs up right next to him with a helipad and heated pools and Airbnbs," wrote Scott Aaronson, chair of computer science at The University of Texas at Austin.

While some have welcomed the news, saying it advances the field in exciting ways, others have rejected the mass dump of proofs.

Terence Tao, widely regarded as the world's greatest mathematicians, shared a statement from the Association for Human Mathematics which called on mathematicians to stop working with OpenAI.

"Releasing over 700 files at once is not a demonstration of scholarship, but a demonstration of power," the group wrote.

"We urge mathematicians to discontinue their work with OpenAI and to return to a vision of science that centres human understanding."

OpenAI said in a blog post that "we want this progress to push the frontier of human knowledge and enable further progress in mathematics", adding that it had consulted extensively with mathematicians on how best to publish the results.

The results have been obtained with an internal model whose full capabilities are unknown, which suggests that AI progress is likely to continue, with profound consequences for the field.

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Timothy Gowers, professor of mathematics at The Collège de France and The University of Cambridge, told Sky News recently that he was "shocked" by the pace of AI progress in maths.

He said: "We're in a very strange state where we can just see the tsunami - we're still on the beach, we can see the tsunami, but it hasn't quite reached us yet.

"During the course of this year they've gone from mediocre PhD student to very good PhD student, to experienced mathematician level, to top mathematician level," added Professor Gowers.

Now it seems to have gone even further.

(c) Sky News 2026: OpenAI sparks 'mathpocalypse' as it publishes full or partial solutions to 372 outstanding p