AlphaTensor beat Strassen's matrix algorithm after 50 years

Volker Strassen’s 1969 algorithm was the first method to multiply matrices using fewer operations than the schoolbook approach, and improving on it remained an open challenge for decades. In its October 5, 2022 Nature paper, DeepMind reported that AlphaTensor improved on Strassen’s two-level algorithm in a finite field for the first time since Strassen published it, roughly fifty years earlier. For multiplying a 4x5 by a 5x5 matrix, AlphaTensor found an algorithm using 76 scalar multiplications, against the previous best of 80 and the standard method’s 100.