What is the kissing problem? The “kissing problem” isn’t the term for a junior high dance conundrum—it’s actually a reference to a famous mathematical riddle. Despite their efforts, no one had established a new lower bound of objects for any dimension below dimension 16. However, in May 2025, Google’s DeepMind laboratory announced its artificial intelligence system AlphaEvolve had managed to increase the 11th dimension’s lower bound of kissing objects to 593. Like in many other fields, the news seemed to indicate the future of kissing problem investigations belonged to AI.