Chinese mathematician Sun Zhiwei proposes 1,000 problems to challenge AI
Por Holly Chik — South China Morning Post – News feed
Advertisement Science China Science Chinese mathematician Sun Zhiwei proposes 1,000 problems to challenge AI
Professor says AI is a capable assistant, but true breakthroughs rely on curiosity and asking original questions
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Holly Chik Published: 8:00pm, 21 Oct 2026
In an age of AI-induced answers to complex mathematical problems, Chinese mathematician Sun Zhiwei maintains that curiosity and asking good questions are more important then ever.
Over a career spent probing the edges of number theory, Sun, a 61-year-old professor at Nanjing University’s department of mathematics, has built a vast landscape of problems – more than 1,000 and counting – for the global research community to tackle .
While traditional mathematical training emphasises mastering existing formulas and proving established theorems, Sun said true progress relied on using intuition to discover new questions and using logic to solve them.
“If a discipline has no conjectures, people no longer know what to do and the field approaches a standstill,” Sun told China Science Daily.
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