Let
V be a smooth cubic surface over a
p-adic field
k with good reduction. Swinnerton-Dyer (1981) proved that
R-equivalence is trivial on
V(k) except perhaps if
V is one of three special types--those whose
R-equivalence he could not bound by proving the universal (admissible) equivalence is trivial. We consider all surfaces
V currently known to have non-trivial universal equivalence. Beyond being intractable to Swinnerton-Dyer's approach, we observe that if these surfaces also had non-trivial
R-equivalence, they would contradict Colliot-Thélène and Sansuc's conjecture regarding the
k-rationality of universal torsors for geometrically rational surfaces. By devising new methods to study
R-equivalence, we prove that for 2-adic surfaces with all-Eckardt reductions (the third special type, which contains every existing case of non-trivial universal equivalence),
R-equivalence is trivial or of exponent 2. For the explicit cases, we confirm triviality: the diagonal cubic
X3+Y3+Z3+ζ3T3=0 over
Q2(ζ3)--answering a long-standing question of Manin's (Cubic Forms, 1972)--and the cubic with universal equivalence of exponent 2 (Kanevsky, 1982). This is the first in a series of works derived from a year of interactions with generative AI models such as AlphaEvolve and Gemini 3 Deep Think, with the latter proving many of our lemmas. We disclose the timeline and nature of their use towards this paper, and describe our broader AI-assisted research program in a companion report (in preparation).