OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced during a livestream on Tuesday that the company is on track to develop a fully autonomous “legitimate AI researcher” by 2028. This ambitious goal follows the company’s recent transition to a public benefit corporation structure, marking a shift from its original non-profit roots and enabling greater flexibility in fundraising and long-term planning. Altman revealed that OpenAI’s deep learning systems are advancing rapidly, with models now capable of solving complex tasks at an increasingly fast pace. The company is already tracking toward achieving an AI system that can function at an intern-level research assistant by September 2026. By 2028, OpenAI aims to deploy a system capable of autonomously managing and delivering on substantial research projects—what Altman described as a “legitimate AI researcher.” Jakub Pachocki, OpenAI’s chief scientist, joined Altman on the livestream and clarified that this AI researcher would not be a human but a sophisticated system designed to independently formulate hypotheses, conduct experiments, analyze results, and iterate toward breakthroughs—mirroring the workflow of human scientists. Pachocki emphasized that OpenAI believes deep learning systems could achieve superintelligence—defined as systems surpassing human capabilities across a broad range of critical tasks—within less than a decade. To reach this milestone, the company is focusing on two core strategies: continuous algorithmic innovation and a massive increase in “test time compute.” This refers to the amount of computational time models spend reasoning through problems before delivering answers. Currently, OpenAI’s models operate with a roughly five-hour thinking horizon. But Pachocki said this could expand dramatically, with the company exploring the use of entire data centers’ worth of computing power dedicated to a single complex scientific problem. This level of resource allocation, he argued, could unlock breakthroughs in fields like medicine, physics, and materials science. The new public benefit corporation structure enables OpenAI to pursue these goals more aggressively. Under the arrangement, the non-profit OpenAI Foundation will retain 26% ownership of the for-profit entity and will govern the research direction, ensuring alignment with the company’s mission. The foundation has also committed $25 billion to use AI for advancing scientific discovery, particularly in areas like disease cure research and AI safety. Altman stressed that the for-profit arm’s ability to raise significant capital will be essential to building the necessary infrastructure. He revealed that OpenAI has committed to acquiring 30 gigawatts of computing infrastructure over the next several years—a project with an estimated $1.4 trillion cost. This investment is seen as critical to enabling the advanced reasoning and scale required for the next generation of AI research systems.