Deep Blue

Deep Blue was a chess-playing computer developed by IBM. It is known for being the first artificial intelligence to win both a chess game and a chess match against a reigning world champion under regular time controls. In 1997, Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov, who was considered one of the greatest chess players of all time.

How it works

Deep Blue used a combination of brute force and heuristic analysis to determine its moves. For the brute force component, Deep Blue could evaluate up to 200 million potential moves per second. This allowed the computer to look up to 12 moves ahead in a given position, far beyond the capacity of most human players.

The heuristic component, on the other hand, was based on a large database of opening moves and endgames. These were preanalyzed by a team of chess experts who worked with the Deep Blue developers. This database allowed the computer to play the opening and ending of the game with near-perfect skill.

Moreover, the performance of Deep Blue improved over time, as more and more knowledge was incorporated into its system. This made it not only a powerful chess machine, but also a symbol of the rapid progression of artificial intelligence.