
AI systems from OpenAI and Google DeepMind have earned gold-medal scores in the 2025 International Math Olympiad (IMO), one of the most prestigious and difficult math competitions for high school students, the companies announced separately in recent days.
The achievement highlights the rapid progress of AI and how closely matched OpenAI and Google remain in the competition for AI dominance. In a race where perception matters as much as performance, these milestones can influence who attracts the best AI talent, particularly since many top researchers come from competitive math backgrounds, making IMO results especially meaningful.
Last year, Google’s entry earned a silver medal using a “formal” approach, which required human input to translate problems into a format the AI could understand. This year, both companies used “informal” systems that processed natural language directly, solving and explaining five out of six problems, outperforming most human competitors and Google’s previous system, with no human translation needed.
IMO Success Highlights Breakthroughs in AI Reasoning Beyond Clear-Cut Tasks
In interviews with TechCrunch, researchers from OpenAI and Google explained that their AI models’ gold-medal performances in the IMO mark significant progress in AI reasoning within areas where solutions can’t be easily verified. While AI typically performs well on tasks with clear-cut answers—like basic math or coding—it’s much more challenged by open-ended problems, such as offering furniture recommendations or assisting in complex research.
However, tensions are rising over how OpenAI handled the announcement of its IMO success. In a move reminiscent of high school rivalries, Google is now questioning the timing and validation of OpenAI’s claims.
Soon after OpenAI shared its results on Saturday morning, just hours after the IMO revealed its top student winners on Friday night, Google DeepMind’s CEO and researchers criticized the announcement. They argued that OpenAI jumped the gun by declaring a gold medal before having its model’s results officially reviewed by the IMO.
Thang Luong, senior researcher at Google DeepMind and lead on the IMO project, told TechCrunch that the company chose to delay its announcement out of respect for the students competing in the event.
Luong explained that Google had been collaborating with IMO organizers since last year to prepare for the competition and chose to wait for the IMO president’s approval and official grading before making its announcement, which came on Monday morning.
“The IMO organizers have specific grading guidelines,” Luong said. “So any evaluation not aligned with those standards can’t credibly claim a gold-medal performance.”
OpenAI Focused on Language Models, Unaware of IMO’s Informal Test with Google
Meanwhile, Noam Brown, a senior researcher at OpenAI who worked on its IMO model, told TechCrunch that IMO had contacted OpenAI months ago about joining a formal math competition, but the company declined, focusing instead on developing natural language-based systems. According to Brown, OpenAI was unaware that IMO was conducting an informal evaluation with Google.
To assess its own model, OpenAI hired three former IMO medalists familiar with the grading criteria to serve as independent evaluators. After determining the model had achieved a gold-medal–level score, OpenAI contacted IMO, which advised the company to hold off on announcing results until after the official student awards ceremony on Friday night.
IMO did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.
Although Google followed a more formal and vetted process, the broader takeaway may be more important: leading AI labs are making rapid progress. At this year’s IMO, only a small fraction of the world’s brightest students matched the scores achieved by the AI models from OpenAI and Google.
While OpenAI once held a clear edge in the field, the competition appears tighter than ever—though few in the industry may want to admit it. With GPT-5 expected soon, OpenAI is undoubtedly aiming to reinforce its position at the forefront of the AI race.
Read the original article on: TechCrunch
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