Beginning in the late 1960s, Chaitin made contributions to algorithmic information theory and metamathematics, in particular a computer-theoretic result equivalent to Gödel's incompleteness theorem.

Besides computer scientists, Chaitin's work draws attention of many philosophers and mathematicians to fundamental problems in mathematical creativity and digital philosophy.

He attended the Bronx High School of Science and the City College of New York, where he (still in his teens) developed the theory that led to his independent discovery of algorithmic complexity.

He is today interested in questions of metabiology and information-theoretic formalizations of the theory of evolution, and is a member of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University.

In 2002 he was given the title of honorary professor by the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina, where his parents were born and where Chaitin spent part of his youth.