The Nihon Ki-in (Japan Go Association) announced on Nov. 29 that it will hold the “World Go Championship” in March next year in which top Go players from Japan, China and South Korea will compete against artificial intelligence (AI) software.
The first-prize winner will receive 30 million yen. From Japan, 9th-dan Yuta Iyama, who holds the Honinbo qualification and six major titles, and “DeepZenGo,” a Go software developed in Japan, will take part in the championship. It has not been decided on who will take part in the event from China and South Korea.
The championship will be held at the Nihon Ki-in Kansai general headquarters in Osaka’s Kita Ward from March 21 to 23. League matches involving all players will be held to decide the order of their rankings.
“Zen”, the best publicly available software, has made incredible progress the last months (I reported he won a match against German champion Lukas Krämer, 6-d, by 3-1 in September).
The objective of its developers is now to beat “Alpha Go” before end 2017
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