5h ago

Oxford's Toby Ord estimates AI labs spent over $100,000 in inference compute for gold-medal IMO performance

David Manheim argues this costs less than human tenure.

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Original post
OPToby Ord#1159Toby Ord@TOBYORDOXFORD

My best guess is that leading labs spent >$100,000 in inference to get their IMO gold medals. Last week's result on the Unit Distance Problem is the first really meaningful autonomous maths research result—but that means the current cost for 1 of those is the entire spend so far.

3:15 AM · May 27, 2026 View on X
REPLYToby Ord#1159Toby Ord@TOBYORDOXFORD

At the moment, I think the current cost per big result that the mathematics community cares about is greater than a lifetime's salary for a top mathematician.

Toby OrdToby Ord@tobyordoxford

My best guess is that leading labs spent >$100,000 in inference to get their IMO gold medals. Last week's result on the Unit Distance Problem is the first really meaningful autonomous maths research result—but that means the current cost for 1 of those is the entire spend so far.

10:15 AM · May 27, 2026 · 1.6K Views
10:20 AM · May 27, 2026 · 2.2K Views