Microsoft Reveals World's Best Mahjong Player, Plans to Open Business School in Shanghai
Tang Shihua
DATE:  Aug 29 2019
/ SOURCE:  yicai
Microsoft Reveals World's Best Mahjong Player, Plans to Open Business School in Shanghai Microsoft Reveals World's Best Mahjong Player, Plans to Open Business School in Shanghai

(Yicai Global) Aug. 29 -- Beijing's Microsoft Asia Research, the tech company's largest research institute outside the US, has created the world's best mahjong player. The US parent also revealed that it will launch its artificial intelligence business school in China. 

Microsoft Asia Research's AI Suphx has beaten two other robo-players, leaving humans below them after more than 5,000 games of mahjong, a complex tile-based game developed in China hundreds of years ago, Shen Xiangyang, Microsoft's global executive vice president, told Yicai Global at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference today.

The Washington-headquartered firm will launch its on-demand Microsoft AI Business School in Shanghai to cater to future business leaders, innovators and executives, Shen added. 

AI Suphx can effectively deal with the high uncertainty that is often present in mahjong by predicting scenarios and adapting to the ever-changing situations, Shen said.

This is not the first time that tech firms seek to prove the intelligence of their algorithms via games. In 2017, AlphaGo, developed by Alphabet's Google DeepMind, beat China's Ke Jie, the world's top Go player at the time. 

Editor: Emmi Laine

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Keywords:   Mahjong,AI,WAIC,Microsoft AI Business School