Google's Gemini Deep Think AI wins gold at the International Mathematical Olympiad

The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) has been recognized as the premier mathematics competition for some of the world's brightest young minds since 1959. With participants from a wide range of countries, each competitor is tasked with solving six "exceptionally difficult" problems spanning fields such as algebra, combinatorics, geometry, and number theory.

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Only 8% of participants earn a gold medal, and now we can add Google's Gemini Deep Think AI to the list. This advanced version of Gemini solved five out of the six problems "perfectly" according to Google, which was enough for it to achieve a gold-medal performance. If you're wondering what the math problems were and the solutions, head here (PDF). But fair warning, it's a lot more advanced than 12 + 57.

"We can confirm that Google DeepMind has reached the much-desired milestone, earning 35 out of a possible 42 points - a gold medal score," IMO President, Prof. Dr. Gregor Dolinar said, adding that it was not only the solutions that were impressive, but how well laid out and easy to follow they were. "Their solutions were astonishing in many respects. IMO graders found them to be clear, precise, and most of them easy to follow."

Making Gemini Deep Think AI's performance even more impressive is that the AI was able to solve the problems within the 4.5-hour competition time limit. To put that into perspective, Google DeepMind's 2024 silver-medal performance using AlphaProof and AlphaGeometry 2 systems took two to three days of computation alongside a team of experts translating the problems from natural language to something the AI could work with.

Part of the impressive improvement comes from Gemini Deep Think's "parallel thinking" features, which allow it to explore multiple solutions simultaneously. In addition to this, Google also trained this custom version of Deep Think in learning and problem-solving techniques better suited to complex mathematics. And yes, Google will roll out the Gemini Deep Think model to "trusted" mathematicians and testers ahead of its availability to Google AI Ultra subscribers.

"Google DeepMind has ongoing collaborations with the mathematical community, but we are still only at the start of AI's potential to contribute to mathematics," Google writes in its announcement. "By teaching our systems to reason more flexibly and intuitively, we are getting closer to building AI that can solve more complex and advanced mathematics."