An AI has computed a quantum physics calculation that no human has ever completed, passing a public challenge issued to AI companies in August.

Researchers gave Claude, running inside the Claude Science platform, a single prompt: compute the six-particle hexagon amplitude in planar N=4 super Yang-Mills theory at nine loops. It produced the answer two different ways, through the bootstrap method and the form-factor approach, Big Think reported.

The result was verified by physicist Lance Dixon, whose team had set the previous record of eight loops in 2023. The compute cost was about $1,000 to $2,000.

The achievement is a milestone in scientific AI. The calculation was believed to be beyond what humans could do, not because it needed huge computers, but because the setup is fragile and every detail must be coded from scratch.

The AI relied on existing methods and offered no new physics insights. But it proved that machines can now push past long-standing limits in theoretical research on their own.