In 2016, Tao constructed a variant of the Navier–Stokes equations which possess solutions exhibiting irregular behavior in finite time. Due to structural similarities between Tao's system and the Navier–Stokes equations themselves, it follows that any positive resolution of the Navier–Stokes existence and smoothness problem must take into account the specific nonlinear structure of the equations. In particular, certain previously-proposed resolutions of the problem could not be legitimate. Tao speculated that the Navier–Stokes equations might be able to simulate a Turing complete system, and that as a consequence it might be possible to (negatively) resolve the existence and smoothness problem using a modification of his results. However, such results remain (as of 2022) conjectural.
