China Computer Go to Challenge Google's AlphaGo

Lee Sedol versus Google's AlphaGo
Lee Sedol versus Google's AlphaGo (photo: REUTERS/Google/Yonhap)
By Mei ManuelApril 1st, 2016

Scientists from the China Computer Go plans to challenge Google's AlphaGo for a game of Go within the end of 2016. Although the details of the challenge are not specified, the announcement was made at "The Forum for Understanding the AlphaGo War between Man and Machine and Chinese Artificial Intelligence."

Google's AlphaGo was developed by DeepMind, a Google subsidiary and it managed to beat known professional Go player, South Korean Lee Sedol in early March. While the victory made history as the first machine to beat a professional player, Lee was considered by the AI as a very formidable opponent.

Go is a very popular game in China, Japan and South Korea and it is played by two players, moving either white or black stones across a square grid intending to get more territory from the other player.

Google's CEO Sundar Pichai was reported to be in one of China's top Go traning schools Thursday to study Go and Chinese culture.

Prior to the victory of AlphaGo and the China Computer Go challenge, AI technology was already being developed by Chinese companies. One of these companies is Baidu Inc and in 2014, they hired Andrew Ng, a former Google engineer to assist in their AI development program.

 

related articles
LATEST FROM China