Benchmark Almanac

FrontierScience-Research

GPT-5.4 Pro 36.7% leads since Mar 2026 Fading

Models work on open-ended PhD-level research subtasks in physics, chemistry and biology, written by working scientists. A grader scores each answer against a 10-point rubric.

The Research track of FrontierScience. The open gold set has 60 Research problems.

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)
Made by OpenAI Released Dec 2025 Research science Public tasks plus a private test set Last in a launch post Mar 2026 , dropped before it saturated Last model added Jun 2026
Level
Expert Specialists with years of training, often over hours of work
Scored
Graded by a model A language model scores each response, usually against a rubric.
Answers
Open-ended Free-form text, documents, designs or media judged as a whole.
3
Models scored in lab cards
1
Launch post lists it, from 1 lab
2
System cards report it, from 1 lab

GPT-5.4 Pro leads with 36.7% among models released by Jun 2026

Best score per model as labs report them in their own cards. Labs pick their own settings, so these compare less cleanly than independent runs.

The newest model with a score here came out in Jun 2026, and nobody has reported a newer one. Among the 20 highest-ranked models on the capability index, these have no score yet:

  1. 1 GPT-5.4 Pro 36.7%
  2. 2 Seed2.1 Pro 28.3%
  3. 3 Seed2.0 Pro 25%
#ModelScoreSettingDateSource
1 GPT-5.4 Pro 36.7% Mar 2026 Model card
2 Seed2.1 Pro 28.3% Jun 2026 Model card
3 Seed2.0 Pro 25% Feb 2026 Model card

2 models have held number one since its release in Dec 2025

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

ByteDance Seed OpenAI
Lab claims Not tested since Jun 2026
GPT-5.4 Pro 36.7%

Scores over time

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

Reported by the lab in its model card Best so far
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 2026 Near the ceiling (85%) GPT-5.4 Pro Seed2.0 Pro 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 2026 Near the ceiling (85%) GPT-5.4 Pro Seed2.0 Pro

Labs headline it less often now, last in Mar 2026

Launch posts from every lab that has listed it, one tick per post. Tall colored ticks include it, and short gray ones leave it out.

OpenAI
DateLaunch postScoreAs the post writes it
5 Mar 2026 GPT-5.4 Pro 36.7 Frontier Science Research

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
23 Jun 2026 Seed2.1 Pro model card 28.3 FrontierScience-Research (Tables 6 and 11). Table 7 prints 33.3 for Seed2.1 Pro Capabilities
14 Feb 2026 Seed2.0 Pro model card 25 FrontierSci-research (Table 3). Table 13 prints 23.3 Capabilities

More in Science and reasoning

All 88 in Science and reasoning
  • GPQA Diamond In use 198 graduate-level 'Google-proof' multiple-choice questions in biology, chemistry and physics. Gemini 4 Argon 96.4%
  • 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 Opus 5 90.1%
  • 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%