Author: Ingo Althofer
Date: 08:28:55 10/30/97
Everybody knows that the DEEP BLUE team of IBM has designed a
massively parallel chess computer ( Deep Blue, sic ) which has beaten
Garry Kasparov in a match by 3.5 : 2.5, in May 1997.
Few people know that there was an overly ambitious attempt by NEC to
achieve something very similar: In 1995 the NEC research laboratory in
Princeton hired Michael Buro and Jean Christophe Weill for a project
in which a massively parallel game tree search algorithms should have
been programmed and realized in a chess program.
The project turned out not to show the intended success in time, and
so things were stopped. Jean-Christophe Weill returned to France - and
is just in these days leading in the WMCCC.... Michael Buro was
allowed
to resume his investigations in Computer Othello: His program
challenged the human World Champion T. Murakami and won by 6:0, in
August 97. Originally Michael's contract at NEC Princeton would have
run out in September 97. But the NEC management was so satiefied with
his work ( and success ) that they gave him a good contract for
another year. His only task for this year: To write good scientific
papers and reports about his research projects at NEC.
I think that this was a very good decision of NEC. Ingo Althoefer.
PS: Probably it will take another 2 years until all his papers will
be published, but that is the normal way in scientific life...
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