In this short note, we report and analyze a striking event: OpenAI's large language model o3 has outwitted all students in a university exam on thermodynamics. The thermodynamics exam is a difficult hurdle for most students, where they must show that they have mastered the fundamentals of this important topic. Consequently, the failure rates are very high, A-grades are rare - and they are considered proof of the students' exceptional intellectual abilities. This is because pattern learning does not help in the exam. The problems can only be solved by knowledgeably and creatively combining principles of thermodynamics. We have given our latest thermodynamics exam not only to the students but also to OpenAI's most powerful reasoning model, o3, and have assessed the answers of o3 exactly the same way as those of the students. In zero-shot mode, the model o3 solved all problems correctly, better than all students who took the exam; its overall score was in the range of the best scores we have seen in more than 10,000 similar exams since 1985. This is a turning point: machines now excel in complex tasks, usually taken as proof of human intellectual capabilities. We discuss the consequences this has for the work of engineers and the education of future engineers.

Artificial intelligence is continuously evolving and propagating across every industry. With much of the groundbreaking innovations moving the industry forward, the technology is continuously making headlines every day. AI refers to software or systems that perform intelligent tasks like those of human brains such as learning, reasoning, and judgment. Its applications range from automation and translation systems for natural languages that people use daily, to image recognition systems that help identify faces and letters from images. Today, AI is used in different forms include digital assistants, chatbots and machine learning, among others.

As Apple plays catch up in many ways, the Mountain View company is doubling down on machine learning efforts that will play an important role in future products. Earlier this week, Google launched a dedicated Machine Learning research group in Europe. Google Research, Europe is based out of the company's Zurich office -- which is already home to the company's largest engineering presence outside of the US. Googlers there were responsible for developing the engine that drives Knowledge Graph and are currently working on the conversation engine that powers the upcoming Google Assistant in Allo. Engineers will specifically focus on natural language processing & understanding, machine intelligence, and machine perception.