OpenAI says its next big model can bring home International Math Olympiad gold: A turning point?

In a groundbreaking announcement that may signal a new era in artificial intelligence, OpenAI has revealed that its next-generation model achieved a gold-medal level score at the 2025 International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO). This remarkable milestone isn’t just a win in a math competition—it could be a turning point in the global race toward Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

A Glimpse into the IMO Achievement

The International Mathematical Olympiad is regarded as the world’s most prestigious high school mathematics competition. Each year, elite teenage mathematicians from over 100 countries gather to tackle some of the most challenging math problems imaginable. The exam spans two days, with three problems per day and 4.5 hours allotted each session—designed not just to test calculation skills but deep conceptual reasoning, creativity, and persistence.

OpenAI’s model tackled the actual IMO 2025 exam under real competition conditions, with no internet access, calculators, or external tools—just the model, its reasoning capabilities, and a blank sheet of digital paper. The result? A score of 35 out of 42, enough to qualify for a gold medal in that year’s competition.

Even more impressive, the model solved five of the six problems and generated natural-language proofs that were independently verified by three former IMO gold medalists. All agreed: the solutions were valid and worthy of top-level scores.

How Did OpenAI Pull It Off?

This wasn’t the result of task-specific coding or rule-based automation. OpenAI used a general-purpose large language model (LLM)—the kind of model designed to handle a wide range of text-based tasks. But this version was equipped with enhanced reasoning capabilities, extensive reinforcement learning, and careful test-time compute strategies.

While other projects like DeepMind’s AlphaGeometry2 have achieved success by focusing narrowly on geometry problems, OpenAI’s model took on the full spectrum of IMO problems—covering algebra, number theory, combinatorics, and geometry. It wasn’t a specialist; it was a generalist showing deep understanding across disciplines.

This evolution points to a massive improvement in AI reasoning, moving far beyond memorization or superficial pattern-matching into genuine creative problem-solving.

Why This Matters: More Than Just Math

While math contests might seem like a niche domain, they serve as a powerful benchmark for testing intelligence. Solving Olympiad-level problems requires multi-step logical deduction, creative thinking, abstraction, and rigorous justification—qualities long thought to be uniquely human.

By excelling at the IMO, OpenAI’s model demonstrates the potential to perform human-level abstract reasoning, a core trait of AGI. If a machine can independently work through such complex problems using only language, the same core capabilities could be adapted to solve issues in theoretical physics, software verification, algorithm design, or even medical diagnosis.

In other words, this isn’t just about math. It’s about showing that machines can reason, reflect, and iterate—traits that are central to many intellectual tasks.

A Turning Point or Just a Milestone?

Some experts hail this as a turning point in AI development. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman hinted that this achievement is a precursor to even greater breakthroughs expected in the next model, rumored to be GPT-5 or beyond.

However, others urge caution. While the performance is undeniably impressive, critics like AI expert Gary Marcus have pointed out that the IMO committee itself hasn’t officially confirmed the result. There are also concerns about the cost and compute required to achieve such a feat. If the model needed hundreds of test-time runs to produce a correct answer, can it scale effectively in real-world applications?

Moreover, the model’s performance in natural, noisy, real-world tasks still needs to be proven. Solving math problems in idealized test environments is different from applying reasoning in messy domains like politics, ethics, or economics.

What’s Next?

OpenAI has not released the model publicly, though it has shared problem solutions for third-party scrutiny. More peer-reviewed assessments are likely in the coming months, especially from academia and the mathematical community.

Here are a few things to watch for:

• Independent verification: Will the IMO committee or academic reviewers publish an official evaluation?
• Generalization: Can the model perform at the same level across other domains, such as physics or computer science Olympiads?
• Integration: Could such reasoning models assist researchers in proving theorems, verifying code, or solving open scientific problems?
• Public release timeline: OpenAI says the model may become available later in 2025, though in limited form initially.

What It Means for Education and Society

If AI can truly perform at IMO gold-medal level, it raises deep questions for the future of education. Should schools continue training students in manual problem-solving if machines can outperform humans at it? Or should the focus shift toward conceptual understanding, collaboration, and interpretation?

There’s also potential for massive positive impact. Imagine students having access to tutors that think like Olympiad medalists, available 24/7. Or research teams equipped with AI collaborators that can test complex proofs or explore new conjectures with no fatigue.

But as with all technology, it comes with risks—ranging from misuse to exacerbating educational inequalities if such tools remain accessible only to a wealthy few.

Final Thoughts: An Inflection Point in AI?

The story of OpenAI’s IMO success is not just about winning a gold medal—it’s about expanding the boundaries of what machines can do. For decades, mathematics has been considered one of the final frontiers of human-only intelligence. This development chips away at that frontier.

Whether this is the true dawn of AGI or just a remarkable waypoint remains to be seen. But what’s clear is this: AI is no longer just solving trivia, translating languages, or writing poems. It’s beginning to think—and that changes everything.