AI beat a 56-year-old math record for multiplying grids of numbers
Google DeepMind's AlphaEvolve found a way to multiply four-by-four grids of complex numbers in 48 steps instead of 49, improving a method from 1969. It also found savings that recovered about 0.7 percent of Google's worldwide computing power.
Why this is new because of AI
Mathematicians had tried to beat this 1969 result for more than half a century and failed. The AI wrote and tested its own new algorithms until it found one people never had.