So far only OpenAI has a model that solved a Millennium Problem, while Opus 5.5 is a star at coding. It's exciting to have many more to join the frontier, but I think the top two labs still have a significant lead over everyone else.
I understand that it's still useful marketing, say for IPO or hiring, but it's not clear to me that it really matters in the long-term that they fund this out of their pocket.
If OpenAI did it purely for marketing, I still think it was well worth it. It marked an important milestone in the history of computing (and also human history). It is on the same level as when IBM's Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov in chess, or when DeepMind's AlphaGo defeated Lee Sedol in Go. The search for winning moves in those games is not dissimilar to the search for paths towards mathematical proofs, and AI has finally proven that it is capable of carrying out deep, complex, and intricate research that exceeds human capabilities.
Besides, a Super Bowl ad costs about $8M, so it is not absurd if they spent a lot of money on this and became the first company to definitively demonstrate AI can surpass humans in mathematics.