A math problem had been resisting experts for more than 80 years. An AI has outperformed them all

OpenAI says an internal reasoning model helped produce a new lower-bound breakthrough for Erdős’s planar unit-distance problem.

The result raises the lower bound from about n^(1+o(1)) to n^(1+δ), ending an 80-year stalemate.

Princeton mathematicians checked the proof and accepted it, lending credibility to the AI-assisted finding.

The advance suggests general-purpose AI may be able to generate genuinely novel mathematics, not just solve benchmarks.