---
title: "Chapters 1 and 12, the first route, due 31 August 2028 · The AI Compute Race · DRYBURGH"
source: https://dryburgh.com/vol1/tests/2028-1
description: "Chapters 1 and 12, the first route: due 31 August 2028."
---

# Chapters 1 and 12, the first route

Due 31 August 2028

**The test.** Supported if one laboratory holds an independently measured frontier lead through three or more complete improvement cycles, which at a three-month training run is nine months or more without a break. Undermined if American leadership has gone on rotating between laboratories since 1 January 2027 at a median laboratory tenure under thirteen weeks, less than one such cycle and near the present rate of about ten weeks. Both limbs count laboratories: a laboratory’s consecutive leading models make one tenure. A record that meets neither limb, a median of thirteen weeks or more with no lead held for nine months, scores neither. If Epoch has published no count of lead periods for that window by that day, the limb is unscored.

a mixed or partial reading Since GPT-4’s 352-day lead the top has passed from model to model at a median of about seven weeks, and from laboratory to laboratory at a median of about ten, with OpenAI on top 80.2 percent of the time, a laboratory median under the thirteen-week line, so the record so far leans to undermined.

From *The AI Compute Race*. [Read the book](https://dryburgh.com/vol1#buy)

**Falls due:** 31 August 2028

**Read on:** Epoch AI’s capability index, and Epoch’s count of lead periods, in which any lead counts

## What it names

- Campus [Stargate Shackelford / Frontier](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/ledger/stargate-shackelford-frontier)
- Party [OpenAI](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/parties/openai)

[Add this test to your calendar](webcal://dryburgh.com/vol1/data/tests.ics?test=2028-1) · Download this test: [CSV](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/data/test-2028-1.csv) · [JSON](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/data/test-2028-1.json)

- [Campuses](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/ledger)
- [Scorecard](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/scorecard)
- [Data](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/data/releases)
- [Chapter by chapter](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/companion)
- [The record at a glance](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/observatory)
- [The machine](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/machine)
- [One campus, four futures](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/hyperion)
- [Glossary](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary)
- [People](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/people)
- [Sources](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/sources)
- [Notes](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes)
- [Where the book was wrong](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/corrections)
- [Where its sources were wrong](https://dryburgh.com/corrections?book=vol1)
- [The Paper](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/paper)
- [Consent](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/consent)
- [Who builds and pays](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/parties)

*The AI Compute Race: Five Races, One Machine* is a book by Lee S. Dryburgh, the first volume of THE COMPUTE ECONOMY, published by Dryburgh, an imprint of Contestra OÜ, Tallinn, Estonia; its record closes on 8 November 2026.

[About the book](https://dryburgh.com/vol1)[Tell me when it is out](https://dryburgh.com/vol1#notify)