AI is accelerating scientific research, with recent AI-assisted breakthroughs powering progress—from AlphaFold’s Nobel Prize-worthy achievements to advanced AI-driven mathematics in 2024 and 2025.

Notable AI-aided math feats include a Chinese AI system solving a decade-old problem in 80 hours and an OpenAI chatbot tackling the unit distance problem; experts say such proofs could be publishable in top journals if created by humans.

AI-driven discoveries, particularly in targeted disease treatments, could yield enormous societal benefits, and some argue AI may reach a point where it can research AI itself.

Chen’s background—born in 1990 with MIT degrees in mathematics and computer engineering—and his involvement with OpenAI, including a Seoul visit for ICML, frame his perspective on these advances.

The story situates AI progress in a broader wave of rapid, AI-enabled research acceleration, while acknowledging the ongoing uncertainty about Nobel-level recognitions.

Mathematics remains foundational for reasoning and problem-solving, and should stay central in education even as AI advances.

OpenAI chief researcher Mark Chen warned that AI could yield groundbreaking discoveries within about two years that might merit major awards, though Nobel recognition isn’t guaranteed.