OpenAI says its AI solved Navier-Stokes Millennium Prize Problem

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The lab used roughly 10,000 AI agents to crack the Navier-Stokes problem, but rivals contested OpenAI's account of events before the proof was published

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OpenAI published a claimed solution on Tuesday to the Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness problem, one of seven Millennium Prize Problems — a set of mathematical questions that carry a $1 million award each. The proof was produced by an internal AI model, not human mathematicians.

Only one Millennium Prize Problem had previously been solved. The Navier-Stokes problem, which has gone unresolved for roughly 90 years, asks whether smooth three-dimensional fluid motion can break down under the equations that govern how liquids and gases move. OpenAI's model found that it can, describing a configuration in which a vortex tightens and spins ever faster — a phenomenon mathematicians refer to as finite-time blowup — while the fluid's energy stays bounded throughout.