I don't get the sales pitch, spend 15 million dollars to win a 1 million dollar price?
Showing of the model's capabilities - okay, but it's not like it solved the problem on its own, and apparently not particularly efficient. Are there practical applications that justify the investment?
How is that any different from any other academic research? Every PhD candidate solves problems essentially nobody cares about. They don't even get $1M, they get nothing.
There are two benefits though.
One is recognition. Cred. The PhD candidate gets to put a ", Ph.D." behind their name, opening doors to future academic employment or other endeavors where people value titles. The AI lab gets to say their tech solved sth that humanity wanted bad for a long time. Both cases with substantial financial upside (higher income for Mr. PhD and higher company valuation for the AI lab).
The other one is that this is how scientific progress works. $1M or not. That number was just a PR campaign by the math community to point to some goals. It's clear that it would cost more than $1M to get there.
Aren't business consulting firms even worse? They are explicitly for business and there are known cases where they shared confidential information of one of their customers with another one.
Showing of the model's capabilities - okay, but it's not like it solved the problem on its own, and apparently not particularly efficient. Are there practical applications that justify the investment?