Yau Laboratory Alliance Launches in Beijing, Aiming for About 1,000 Math and AI Researchers
Fields Medalist Shing-Tung Yau and eight Chinese institutions launched the Yau Laboratory Alliance at Tsinghua to push AI into math, citing a gap with OpenAI.
Eight Chinese institutions launched the Yau Laboratory Alliance for Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence on Sunday, October 11, at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Fields Medalist Shing-Tung Yau, who won the medal in 1982, helped launch it. The aim is a collaborative network of about 1,000 researchers, according to Seoul Economic Daily, though other outlets say more than 1,000. Members include Tsinghua's Qiuzhen College, the Beijing Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Applications, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong's Zhizhen School. Labs are planned in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Shenzhen and Hong Kong.
Yau's pitch is alarm. "A year ago, I didn't think AI was this strong. The advance of AI in mathematics is like a tsunami." He also said: "If you ask Chinese AI models to do what OpenAI has done over the past month, the gap is very large."
OpenAI's own claims supply some context. The company claimed it solved the Navier-Stokes problem in 88 hours, and India Today reports it released 722 manuscripts, withdrew three after an error and revised 14. Twenty-five Fields Medalists, including Terence Tao, signed a letter warning about AI's effect on mathematical understanding. Yau replied that Tao does not speak for the whole community.
The coverage gives no budget, funding source, lab opening dates or computing hardware.
My take: an alliance is a roster and a ribbon-cutting. It is not a model, and it is not a result. Show me the eval, not the vibe.
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Meanwhile at the anchor desk
Eight institutions, a planned thousand-strong research network and five labs on the drawing board! Naturally the coverage gives no budget, but darling, the ambition is already fully funded.
Five planned labs, but the coverage gives no opening dates or computing hardware. For now, ambition gets the headline.
