Can AI tutors change homework for Indian students?

The New Alliance for Math

Look, what if a computer isn’t just tallying numbers but helping humans crack puzzles we’ve chased for decades? Google DeepMind’s AI for Math Initiative is teaming with five top research institutions—Imperial College London, the Institute for Advanced Study, IHES, UC Berkeley’s Simons Institute, and TIFR—to push AI from tool to co-creator. This isn’t about speed alone; it’s about AI guiding the thinking, suggesting paths, and proving results in collaboration with real mathematicians. The goal is audacious: use AI, through tools like Gemini Deep Think, AlphaEvolve, and AlphaProof, to tackle problems that used to sit stubbornly out of reach.

The demonstrations aren’t abstract theory. DeepMind’s AlphaGeometry and AlphaProof earned silver medals at the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) in 2024, while the latest Gemini model, powered by Deep Think, scored a gold—solving five of six problems and tallying 35 points. And this is just the start. Analysts say we’re watching a pivot point where AI isn’t just assisting math—it’s reshaping how breakthroughs happen.

What AI Is Doing to the Math Itself

So, what changes beyond faster calculations? AI like AlphaEvolve is already delivering results that feel almost sci-fi: it has improved solutions to over 50 open problems across areas like mathematical analysis and number theory. It even invented a new, more efficient matrix multiplication algorithm for 4x4 matrices, beating Strassen’s algorithm by nearly 40% in efficiency. (Yes, that kind of improvement can ripple through simulations, cryptography, and machine learning in ways we’ll notice in years to come.)

That’s not just “more clever” math. It’s a different approach to discovery: AI can propose conjectures, test them at scale, and then work with humans to refine, prove, or refute. It moves the math pipeline from solitary insight to collaborative cycles between human intuition and machine-born exploration. The upshot for everyday Indians is less about a single breakthrough and more about a new pathway to education, research, and industry—where AI-assisted thinking becomes a normal part of how we learn and innovate.

The ripple will be felt beyond math borders—across science, engineering, and policy. A new era of discovery is starting, and India doesn’t want to miss the first wave. This is a moment to act, invest, and imagine how AI-powered mathematics could redefine what our schools teach, what our labs solve, and what our economy builds. The implications aren’t merely academic; they’re a shift in how Indians understand possibility itself.