Anthropic and OpenAI have just opened a new front in their race for AI: scientific research. The two Silicon Valley giants released their tools on the same day, each with a radically different approach.
In brief
- On the same day, Anthropic and OpenAI launched AI products dedicated exclusively to scientific and biological research.
- Claude Science: A new Anthropic interface linked to more than 60 major databases to accelerate laboratory work.
- GeneBench-Pro: An ultra-complex benchmark published by OpenAI where even its flagship, GPT-5.6 Sol, still fails on nearly 70% of biology tasks.
Claude Science: an AI laboratory for researchers
On Tuesday June 30, 2026, Anthropic unveils Claude Science a few days after the launch of Fable 5. This is a AI application connected to more than 60 scientific databases covering:
- genomics;
- proteomics;
- chemoinformatics.
Each result produced remains traceable back to the source code that generated it.
The objective is clear: to automate the analysis of complex biological data while guaranteeing total transparency, since each result is auditable and traced back to its original code. Initial tests conducted with the Allen Institute show that reviews of scientific literature that once took up to two years could be condensed dramatically.
GeneBench-Pro: OpenAI tests the limits of AI
For its part, OpenAI has published GeneBench-Pro. In April, it launched a ChatGPT specifically designed for doctors. GeneBench-Pro is a benchmark of 129 problems designed to assess the ability of AIs to make decisions in complex biological data.
OpenAI's best model, GPT-5.6 Sol, only fixed 28.7% of issues in Standard mode and 31.5% in Pro mode. The original GPT-5 model had failed by less than 5% on the first version of the test when Claude Opus 4.8 had reached 16%.
A problem in the benchmark would normally take 20 to 40 hours of work from a human expert, at a cost of several thousand dollars. In his press releaseOpenAI claims that its AI model processes the same analysis for just a few dollars.
Two strategies, one race
Biogerontologist Aubrey de Gray believes that AI could soon remove some major obstacles to medical research, even if the broader benefits will take time. Professor of immunology Derya Unutmaz goes further, judging thatuse of AI in medicine will soon become essential.
This rivalry also takes place in a tense geopolitical context. Reference is made to the rise of Chinese AI models as well as American export restrictions. This pushes Anthropic to consider new countries for its models.
In any case, this scientific battle is only the beginning. If Anthropic and OpenAI are investing so much in research, it is because AI applied to biology could become the next big market after chatbots. It remains to be seen which of the two strategies will establish themselves as a benchmark in the artificial intelligence sector.
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