OpenAI burned $22.5M in compute to beat NYU mathematician to Navier–Stokes proof, he says
SumitGup · x · 2026-09-09
NYU math professor Tristan Buckmaster accuses OpenAI of racing him unfairly to a proof of the Navier–Stokes existence and smoothness problem, one of the Millennium Prize Problems.
- Buckmaster was working toward a proof using OpenAI's Codex when his progress reached OpenAI
- Days later, OpenAI published a full proof with the same uncommon approach, reportedly burning $22.5M in compute for a $1M prize
- When confronted, exec Sébastien Bubeck allegedly said 'Why would you ruin your career?' and 'If you don't want me to be nice, then I don't have to be nice'
- Buckmaster announced three proofs with Anthropic mathematician Levent Alpöge, using both Codex and Claude
- TechCrunch: OpenAI's motive was the headline, not the bounty
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