A Fields Medalist Wants a Thousand Researchers Building AI for Math Proofs

Shing-Tung Yau, a mathematician who won the Fields Medal (math's top prize), launched an alliance of eight Chinese research institutions in Beijing on Sunday. The alliance aims to grow to more than 1,000 researchers and build specialized AI models for mathematics that produce proofs a computer can check automatically. Yau said China is behind the US in this field. Meanwhile, 25 other Fields Medal winners, including Terence Tao and Peter Scholze, warn that AI-written proofs erode mathematical understanding. Some of them are calling for a boycott of such proofs.

Anyone who works with AI agents daily recognizes this pattern. A result can look finished long before anyone checks it line by line, and the real problem often surfaces only after it is already in use. An alliance of more than 1,000 researchers sounds impressive on paper, but the real test won't be the announcement. It will be how many of these proofs actually pass full machine verification.