While one of the contenders* has prepared with years of practice, flexing his grey matter* in matches of the ancient Chinese game of strategy, his opponent* has been programmed to perfection.

    From today, Google’s artificial intelligence* division, DeepMind, will take on a world champion player in a five-day contest of the board game Go. In a true test of man versus machine, DeepMind’s AlphaGo program will take on South Korea’s Lee Sedol over five games, and the winner will take home US$1 million.

    Go has been described as one of the most complex games ever devised by man and has trillions of possible moves, but Google recently stunned the world by announcing its artificial intelligence software had beaten one of the game’s grandmasters.

    Lee, who is currently ranked second in the world behind fellow South Korean Lee Chang-ho, said he is confident of victory.

    The game, which was first played in China and is far harder than chess, had been regarded as an outstanding grand challenge for artificial intelligence until now.(SD-Agencies)