Chinese AI wins computer Go tournament

Chinese artificial intelligence FineArt beat its Japanese rival DeepZenGo to win the 10th Computer Go UEC Cup on Sunday.

The worldwide computer Go tournament has been held at the University of Electro-Communications (UEC) in Tokyo, Japan annually since 2007. This year's tournament attracted 30 AI players around the world.

FineArt, developed by Chinese internet giant Tencent, participated in the tournament for the first time and won all 11 games it played.

The picture shows the progress of the final competition between FineArt and DeepZenGo in Tokyo, Japan, on Sunday, March 19, 2017. [Photo: yicai.com]

It will next challenge rising Japanese professional player Ryo Ichiriki on March 26 in an official regular competition related to the UEC Cup.

Google's AlphaGo, which beat world-class human player Lee Sedol in March 2016, didn't join the tournament.

About FineArt

Similar to AlphaGo, FineArt uses deep learning to study expert games. It then plays against itself, which is called reinforcement learning, to improve its capability. Games played against human players also contribute to its success.

The results of online games FineArt played against renowned human players. [Photo: thepaper.cn]

Developed by a team of 13 AI professionals over the course of a year, FineArt debuted on the Tencent Go website in November 2016. By March 9, 2017, it had played against over 100 renowned human players. It won 388 out of 509 games for a winning percentage of 76.23%. In its 21 matches against China's top player Ke Jie, FineArt obtained 16 victories.

According to the FineArt team, there is no plan currently for the Chinese AI to play against AlphaGo.

The Go board of the final competition between FineArt and DeepZenGo is shown on the computer used by the FineArt team in Tokyo, Japan, on Sunday, March 19, 2017. [Photo: thepaper.cn]

The AI technology behind FineArt has a very wide prospect in application, said Tencent Vice President and head of its AI Lab Yao Xing, such as in self-driving vehicles, quantitative finance, complementary medicine, and more.

AI in China

Chinese internet and technology giants have shown great interest in AI in recent years.

Baidu

The Baidu online search engine has been investing billions of US dollars annually in AI technology. Its achievements have been listed among the 10 Breakthrough Technologies chosen by MIT Technology Review for two consecutive years.

Baidu has an advantage especially in voice and image recognition, with recognition rates sitting only just below 100%.

The Baidu Brain participates in the scientific reality and talent show 'The Brain' to compete with top human contestants. [Photo: sohu.com]

Its AI 'Baidu Brain' beat a human candidate in voice and image recognition in one episode of the Chinese version of the scientific reality and talent show, 'The Brain,' where human candidates are chosen for their exceptional brainpower. The show was broadcast on January 6 this year.

The current focus of Baidu's AI research is on self-driving vehicles, according to Baidu's CEO Robin Li.

Alibaba

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has launched 'City Brain,' an artificial intelligence hub which uses big data to help build smart cities.

Wang Jian, chairman of the Technology Steering Committee of Alibaba Group, introduces the City Brain project at the 2016 Computing Conference in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province on October 13, 2016. [Photo: Alibaba Group]

The core of 'City Brain' uses the ET artificial intelligence technology of Ali cloud, which can conduct overall real-time analysis of a city, automatically deploy public resources, and amend defects in urban operations.

Tencent

Tencent is relatively new in the AI area. It established its AI Lab in 2016, with 4 main research fields of machine learning, natural language processing, voice recognition and computer vision.

Tencent's AI research is expected to integrate with the development of its social media software such as WeChat and QQ to make them more user-friendly.

Tencent has a record face recognition rate of 99.65% in LFW Face Database. [Photo: toutiao.com]

Tencent beat Linkface, Face++, Facebook and Google in LFW (Labeled Faces in the Wild) Face Database last June, with a record face recognition rate of 99.65%.