Key facts
- Mathematician Sun Zhiwei has proposed over 1,000 mathematical problems.
- He offers cash prizes for solutions, some funded from his personal salary.
- One problem, related to the four-square theorem, has a $2,400 prize and remains unsolved since 2017.
- A paper in 2026 used ChatGPT to help prove one of his conjectures.
- Sun Zhiwei began using AI programming in 2009 at age 44.
Chinese mathematician Sun Zhiwei, a professor at Nanjing University, has proposed over 1,000 mathematical problems, some with cash prizes, to stimulate research in number theory and related fields. He believes that asking good questions is more important than ever, especially in the age of AI. Sun has been developing these problems over his career, with some drawing from classic theorems like the four-square theorem and others emerging from computational exploration. He began using AI programming in 2009 to aid his research, enabling him to test conjectures on vast datasets. Some of his prize-offered problems have been solved by international mathematicians, leading to published research. Notably, a 2026 paper claimed the use of OpenAI's ChatGPT, with subsequent human verification, to prove one of Sun's conjectures. Sun views AI as a valuable research assistant that can help explore and test mathematical ideas, freeing mathematicians to focus on developing new theories and posing creative questions.