Gukesh Donmaraj made history by defeating China’s Ding Liren at the 2024 World Chess Championship in Singapore, becoming the youngest world chess champion at just 18 years old.
The whole world is celebrating this victory, especially the Google community, including CEO Sundar Pichai and DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, who have played a central role in integrating AI into the world of chess. . Hassabis praised former world chess champion Viswanathan Anand for inspiring a generation of Indian chess geniuses.
Given its contributions to chess AI through models like AlphaZero, Google’s official sponsorship of the championship’s legacy makes the company even more important. This exemplifies state-of-the-art capabilities in strategy and learning for games like chess.
This championship was more than just a contest of skill. It reflected how central technology is to chess. Interestingly, for the first time, an AI camera tracked players’ concentration and emotions by monitoring their eye movements and seat position in real time. This championship used the most cameras ever.
A story of two “DeepMinds”
Coincidentally, two weeks ago, Hassabis made a historic first move at the start of the championship. He and Donmaraju share more than just a passion for chess. They are making history in their respective fields.
Hassabis, a FIDE Masters candidate and former world No. 2 under-14 chess player, has played a pivotal role in the advancement of AI, particularly through innovations like AlphaFold.
Interestingly, AlphaFold is one of the youngest innovations to win a Nobel Prize. “Alfafold is four years old, which is very young to win a Nobel Prize,” said the presenter at the award ceremony in Stockholm, introducing Hassabis.
Notably, Don Maraju is also the youngest champion to date. In an earlier interview, Donmaraju said that it was his dream to become the youngest chess champion and he continued to make it a reality.
“Congratulations, Gukesh, my friend! At 18 years old, you are the youngest New World Chess Champion in history, which is truly amazing,” congratulated Hassabis X.
Inside Google’s Chess Legacy
At the FIDE World Championship 2024 press conference, both Gukesh and Ding emphasized that AlphaZero’s book on playing style has had a major influence on their own approach.
Google Gemini introduced the Chess Champ experiment, a feature that allows users to play chess in a text-based format. This feature uses Gemini’s knowledge base to generate accurate visual responses and enhance the interactive experience.
Google’s AlphaZero defeated the open source chess program Stockfish 8 in a match of 100 games, with 28 wins and 72 draws. AlphaZero also mastered Go and Shogi within hours using reinforcement learning, which focuses on quality of moves rather than brute force calculations. Unlike traditional engines, it relies on self-reinforcement to achieve high performance, marking a shift in AI design toward generalized, self-learning systems.
Interestingly, chess AI technologies like AlphaZero enable real-world applications such as AlphaFold for protein structure prediction, AlphaProof for mathematical research, and AlphaDev for algorithm discovery, increasing the impact of AI across disciplines. It shows.
Google DeepMind is betting on combining scaling and architectural innovation to drive multimodal, neurosemiotic AI toward AGI. Google DeepMind is also investing in RL agents and exploring real-world simulations to better understand complex systems.
After all, AI is just a tool, not a player
Gukesh’s victory also reflects the growing influence of AI in chess, as players use it to prepare for matches and study their opponents.
Earlier this year, Anand shared his insights on the role of AI in chess at AIM’s MLDS event. He talked about using AI tools to create training exercises and explain movement, describing it as “statistics applied to language” and a reflection of how players learn.
Despite these advances, viewers still value emotion, risk, and creativity over AI players, and prefer the thrill of human competition. Anand also said that AI can never replace humans.
Sam Altman, head of OpenAI, made a similar observation at the Davos World Economic Forum, saying that while chess is more popular than ever, audiences still aren’t interested in watching two AIs play against each other. , pointed out that they like competition between humans.
Looking ahead, for Gukesh and the entire chess community, this is just the beginning of a future where tradition and innovation go hand in hand.
