Definition
Plain language
The International Mathematical Olympiad, the most prestigious high school math competition in the world.
As stated in the literature
The International Mathematical Olympiad; six-problem proof-based competition used as a frontier reasoning benchmark for AI systems including DeepMind's AlphaProof and recent open-source efforts.
Why it matters: Performance on IMO problems has become a public marker for whether AI systems can do real mathematical reasoning rather than pattern-matching.
For example, an IMO problem might ask you to prove that no positive integer of a particular form can be a perfect square, with a full written proof judged for rigor.
Heard on the show
“On the twenty-twenty-five IMO, the model alone — one shot, no search — scores 27 out of 42.”Episode 133 — How MiniMax Turned a Reward-Hacking Disaster Into Olympiad Gold