Reasoning & Test-Time Compute · 2024

OpenAI o1 / o3 Reasoning Systems

OpenAI

These were the first widely deployed systems trained to spend additional inference-time computation on an internal chain of reasoning before answering, trading longer per-query compute for markedly higher accuracy on math, science, and coding problems.

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Rather than answering immediately, these models generate an extended internal reasoning process and can allocate more or less thinking time to a query. Accuracy on hard reasoning benchmarks improved as more inference compute was spent, establishing test-time compute as a scaling axis distinct from making the model or its training set larger. The reasoning details were released through system cards rather than a formal paper, and the internal chain of thought was kept hidden from users.

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Record ID
P-225
Record created
2026-07-13
Last reviewed
2026-07-14
Record version
2

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