'How many R’s does the word Strawberry have?' is a common question, that can now be answered with PhD-level intelligence thanks to reasoning models.Reinforcement learning techniques inspired by AlphaGo and AlphaZero led to the rise of reasoning models.Reflection is one of the most significant technical breakthroughs for reasoning models.China is ahead of the USA in open-source models that can reason and do math well.Traditional “scaling laws” theory is being questioned as researchers explore new approaches, including reasoning models.Integration of neuro-symbolic and traditional deep learning has emerged as a promising direction.Testing new models requires high-quality reasoning datasets such as MetaMathQA and ReMI.Benchmark collections such as the Rainbow framework test reasoning capabilities.Apple’s researchers note that true AI reasoning remains an elusive goal even with pattern recognition advancements.Breakthrough moments accompanied by sobering reality checks mark the journey towards genuine AI reasoning.