Benchmark Almanac

FrontierScience-Olympiad

GPT-5.2 77.1% leads since December 2025
GPT-5.2 77.1% leads since December 2025
Only in system cards

Models solve olympiad-style physics, chemistry and biology problems at the level of IPhO, IChO and IBO, written by medalists and coaches. Graded on short final answers.

The Olympiad track of FrontierScience. The open gold set has 100 Olympiad problems. Labs report it apart from the Research track, with much higher scores.

Made by
OpenAI
Released
December 2025
Kind
Science olympiads
Level
Competition
Scored
Checked automatically
Answers
Short answer
Tasks
Public, plus a private test set
Strongest model tested
GPT-5.2 #50 on the capability index
Last in a system card
June 2026
Last model added
June 2026
Scores refreshed
November 12th, 2026

In the authors’ words

We introduce FrontierScience, a benchmark evaluating expert-level scientific reasoning in frontier language models. Recent model progress has nearly saturated existing science benchmarks, which often rely on multiple-choice knowledge questions or already published information. FrontierScience addresses this gap through two complementary tracks: (1) Olympiad, consisting of international olympiad problems at the level of IPhO, IChO, and IBO, and (2) Research, consisting of PhD-level, open-ended problems representative of sub-tasks in scientific research. FrontierScience contains several hundred questions (including 160 in the open-sourced gold set) covering subfields across physics, chemistry, and biology, from quantum electrodynamics to synthetic organic chemistry. All Olympiad problems are originally produced by international Olympiad medalists and national team coaches to ensure standards of difficulty, originality, and factuality. All Research problems are research sub-tasks written and verified by PhD scientists (doctoral candidates, postdoctoral researchers, or professors). For Research, we introduce a granular rubric-based evaluation framework to assess model capabilities throughout the process of solving a research task, rather than judging only a standalone final answer.

Abstract of FrontierScience: Evaluating AI's Ability to Perform Expert-Level Scientific Tasks (arXiv:2601.21165, CC0)
8
Entries on its own leaderboard, 7 models we track
2
System cards report it, from 1 lab

GPT-5.2 leads with 77.1% among models released by December 2025

Best score per entry from the benchmark's own leaderboard, read on November 12th, 2026. Where a model ran with several settings or harnesses, we keep its best. Names in gray aren't in our model list: fine-tunes, agent systems, products and older models. They don't count toward leaders.

GPT-5.2 leads with 77.1%, claims included

Best score per model from every source, including labs’ own numbers and claims Epoch AI collected from reports and papers. Labs pick their own settings, so a claim can beat an independent run of the same model.

The newest model with a score here came out in December 2025, and nobody has tested a newer one. Among the 20 highest-ranked models on the capability index, these have no score yet:

  1. 1 GPT-5.2 xhigh 77.1%
  2. 2 Gemini 3 Pro 76.1%
  3. 3 Claude Opus 4.5 71.3%
  4. 4 Grok 4 66.2%
  5. 5 o3 high 63%
  6. 6 o4-mini 61.6%
  7. 7 o1 42.5%
  8. 8 GPT-4o (snapshot unspecified) 12.3%

Source: Official FrontierScience-Olympiad leaderboard

#EntryScoreSettingDateSource
1 GPT-5.2 77.1% xhigh Dec 2025 Official leaderboard
2 Gemini 3 Pro 76.1% Nov 2025 Official leaderboard
3 Claude Opus 4.5 71.3% Nov 2025 Official leaderboard
4 Grok 4 66.2% Jul 2025 Official leaderboard
5 o3 63% high Apr 2025 Official leaderboard
6 o4-mini 61.6% Apr 2025 Official leaderboard
7 o1 42.5% Dec 2024 Official leaderboard
8 GPT-4o (snapshot unspecified) 12.3% Official leaderboard
#ModelScoreSettingDateSource
1 GPT-5.2 77.1% xhigh Dec 2025 Official leaderboard
2 Gemini 3 Pro 76.1% Nov 2025 Official leaderboard
3 Seed2.1 Pro 75% Jun 2026 Lab model card
4 Seed2.0 Pro 74% Feb 2026 Lab model card
5 Claude Opus 4.5 71.3% Nov 2025 Official leaderboard
6 Grok 4 66.2% Jul 2025 Official leaderboard
7 o3 63% high Apr 2025 Official leaderboard
8 o4-mini 61.6% Apr 2025 Official leaderboard
9 o1 42.5% Dec 2024 Official leaderboard

Labs report scores for 2 models in their cards. Switch the scores above to rank them together.

2 models have held number one on the official leaderboard since its release in December 2025 2 models have held number one with claims included since its release in December 2025

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

Google DeepMind OpenAI
Own leaderboard Not tested since Dec 2025
GPT-5.2 77.1%

Source: Official FrontierScience-Olympiad 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 Reported by the lab in its model card Best so far
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 2025 2026 Near the ceiling (85%) GPT-5.2 Grok 4 o1 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 2025 2026 Near the ceiling (85%) GPT-5.2 Grok 4

Sources: Official FrontierScience-Olympiad leaderboard and labs’ model cards

Labs report it only in system cards

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

2 system cards report it, from 1 lab

Besides launch posts, we read the system cards, model cards and technical reports labs publish with a release. They report far more, including safety and frontier-risk tests.

DateDocumentScoreAs the document writes itSection
Jun 23, 2026 Seed2.1 Pro model card 75 FrontierScience-Olympiad (Table 11) Capabilities
Feb 14, 2026 Seed2.0 Pro model card 74 FrontierSci-olympiad (Table 3) Capabilities

More in Science and reasoning

All 92 in Science and reasoning
  • GPQA Diamond In use 198 graduate-level 'Google-proof' multiple-choice questions in biology, chemistry and physics. Gemini 4 Carbon 96.5%
  • Terminal-Bench-Science In use 70 scientific research-workflow tasks across five science areas, run in Harbor containers. Hidden tests give the resolution rate. GPT-6 Astra 68.1%
  • FrontierScience In use Models solve physics, chemistry, and biology problems in an Olympiad track graded by short answer and a Research track graded by 10-point rubrics. Intern-S2-397B 87%
  • BioMysteryBench In use Bioinformatics problems on anonymized real datasets that require real analysis with tools. Rubric-graded, with human-solvable and human-difficult splits. Claude Fable 5.2 83.7%
  • HiPhO In use Models solve theory problems from 2024 and 2025 physics olympiad exams, some with diagrams. Official marking schemes grade answers and steps, mapped to medal levels. Gemini 3 Pro 78.3%
  • LABBench2 In use 11 biology research sub-tasks (literature, figures, tables, patents, trials and more) with tool access. Macro-averaged accuracy. GPT-5.2 60.9%