An Open Recipe for IMO Gold: Training Nemotron for Olympiad Mathematics
Open post-training pipeline turns Nemotron 3 Ultra checkpoints into an IMO 2026 gold-medal system, scoring 30/42 without formal provers or external tools.
Starting from Nemotron 3 Ultra, researchers trained two specialist checkpoints using supervised fine-tuning and reinforcement learning for natural-language olympiad proof generation. Three checkpoints power an iterative generate-verify-refine search plus a separate high-compute selection stage, operating entirely in natural language with no formal prover, external tools, or internet access. The system scored 30 of 42 points at IMO 2026, reaching the gold-medal threshold. The release includes the post-trained checkpoints, training data, training and inference code, submitted solutions, and Nemotron-IMO-Bench with 200 novel olympiad-level problems.
- Two specialist checkpoints trained via SFT and RL from Nemotron 3 Ultra
- Iterative generate-verify-refine search plus high-compute final selection stage
- 30/42 at IMO 2026 reaches the gold-medal threshold in natural language
- Releases checkpoints, data, code, solutions, and 200-problem Nemotron-IMO-Bench
Full article145 words · extracted from huggingface.co · click to collapse
We study how model post-training and test-time inference design affect natural-language proof generation for hard olympiad mathematics. Starting from Nemotron 3 Ultra, we train two specialist checkpoints using supervised fine-tuning and reinforcement learning, and evaluate checkpoint choice, verification, and refinement. Based on these findings, we present an open-model test-time-compute pipeline. The system operates entirely in natural language, with no formal prover, external tools, or internet access. Three Nemotron 3 Ultra checkpoints - the general-availability model and two post-trained specialists - power an iterative search that generates, verifies, and refines candidate proofs; a separate high-compute stage then selects each final submission. The system scored 30 out of 42 points at IMO 2026, reaching the gold-medal threshold. We release the two post-trained checkpoints as well as the training data, the training and inference code, the submitted solutions, and Nemotron-IMO-Bench, a new benchmark of 200 novel olympiad-level problems.
Text extracted automatically; images, tables and formatting may be missing. Original: https://huggingface.co/papers/2609.10712