Benchmark Almanac

FrontierCS 2

Claude Opus 5.5 58.3% leads since October 2026
Not in model cards

Agents work inside the released repository of a recent systems or programming-languages paper and try to beat that paper's method. A hidden held-out suite grades the final patch against the human reference.

48 of a planned 150 tasks released across 13 domains. The maker says FrontierCS 2 asks a different question from FrontierCS 1.0, so scores are not comparable.

Released
October 2026
Kind
AI research tasks
Level
Research frontier
Scored
Checked automatically
Answers
Agent task
Tasks
Public, plus a private test set
Strongest model tested
Gemini 4 Carbon #2 on the capability index
Last model added
November 2026
Scores refreshed
November 12th, 2026

In the authors’ words

Can LLM agents make contributions to frontier computer science R&D? We introduce FrontierCS 2, a benchmark of 48 open-ended tasks. We take a paper and the code its authors released and delete the paper's contribution. The deleted code becomes the human reference that sets the bar. Earlier open-ended benchmarks give each agent a problem statement and grade one program after the run. FrontierCS 2 places the agent inside a research environment. The agent inherits a working repository and may submit a patch at any point. For each patch, a judge returns a development-suite score but keeps the evaluator, the held-out final suite and the reference private, and grades the final submission on that suite against the reference. The tasks span 13 domains, from machine-learning systems and high-performance computing to databases, security and robotics. Beyond these 48 tasks, FrontierCS 2 keeps a private set of more than 100 tasks, to be announced in the future. We evaluate 12 agents. The best one is Claude Opus 5.5, passing 58% of its runs. No run passes on 16 tasks. A higher score is not the same as a pass: most runs that beat the reference on the combined final score still fall short on some metric or workload. On a shared capability scale for agents and tasks, the median task is roughly as difficult as what the strongest agent can handle.

Abstract of FrontierCS 2: A Benchmark for Computer Science R&D (arXiv:2610.29932, CC0)
19
Models scored on its own leaderboard

Claude Opus 5.5 leads with 58.3%

Best score per model from the benchmark's own leaderboard, read on November 12th, 2026. Where a model ran with several settings or harnesses, we keep its best.

  1. 1 Claude Opus 5.5 58.3%
  2. 2 Gemini 4 Argon 54.2%
  3. 3 Gemini 4 Carbon 54.2%
  4. 4 Claude Sonnet 5.5 50%
  5. 5 GPT-6 Astra 45.8%
  6. 6 GPT-6.1 Terra 39.6%
  7. 7 GPT-6.1 Sol 37.5%
  8. 8 Claude Fable 5.1 35.4%
  9. 9 GLM-5.3 22.9%
  10. 10 Muse Wonder 22.9%
  11. 11 Kimi K3 20.8%
  12. 12 DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 14.6%
  13. 13 GLM-5.3-Flash 12.5%
  14. 14 Muse Spark 1.3 12.5%
  15. 15 DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 12.5%
  16. 16 Qwen 3.8 Max 10.4%
  17. 17 Step 5 Preview 10.4%
  18. 18 MiniMax-M3.1-Flash 8.33%
  19. 19 Inkling 2 Small 8.33%

Source: Official FrontierCS 2 leaderboard

#ModelScoreSettingDateSource
1 Claude Opus 5.5 58.3% Sep 2026 Official leaderboard
2 Gemini 4 Argon 54.2% Sep 2026 Official leaderboard
3 Gemini 4 Carbon 54.2% Oct 2026 Official leaderboard
4 Claude Sonnet 5.5 50% Sep 2026 Official leaderboard
5 GPT-6 Astra 45.8% Sep 2026 Official leaderboard
6 GPT-6.1 Terra 39.6% Oct 2026 Official leaderboard
7 GPT-6.1 Sol 37.5% Sep 2026 Official leaderboard
8 Claude Fable 5.1 35.4% Sep 2026 Official leaderboard
9 GLM-5.3 22.9% Aug 2026 Official leaderboard
10 Muse Wonder 22.9% Oct 2026 Official leaderboard
11 Kimi K3 20.8% Jul 2026 Official leaderboard
12 DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 14.6% Oct 2026 Official leaderboard
13 GLM-5.3-Flash 12.5% Aug 2026 Official leaderboard
14 Muse Spark 1.3 12.5% Sep 2026 Official leaderboard
15 DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 12.5% Sep 2026 Official leaderboard
16 Qwen 3.8 Max 10.4% Aug 2026 Official leaderboard
17 Step 5 Preview 10.4% Sep 2026 Official leaderboard
18 MiniMax-M3.1-Flash 8.33% Oct 2026 Official leaderboard
19 Inkling 2 Small 8.33% Nov 2026 Official leaderboard

Number one over time

Lab claims count from the day the card came out, independent runs from the model’s release.

Anthropic
Own leaderboard 1 leader

Source: Official FrontierCS 2 leaderboard

Scores over time

All the scores we have, one dot each, so a model tested at several settings appears more than once.

On the benchmark’s own leaderboard Best so far
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 2027 Near the ceiling (85%) Claude Opus 5.5 GPT-6 Astra Claude Fable 5.1 GLM-5.3 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 2027 Near the ceiling (85%) Claude Opus 5.5 GPT-6 Astra

Source: Official FrontierCS 2 leaderboard

No lab model card reports it yet

We read the headline results of 522 launch posts from 52 labs, and none of them list this benchmark.

Versions

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