The International Chess Federation and the world's top tech company challenge enthusiasts to make chess-playing programs which work well without requiring powerful computers to run them.

Chess has long been a grand challenge for artificial intelligence, a proving ground for pushing the boundaries of algorithms and computational power. While advancements like AlphaZero and Stockfish engines have achieved superhuman performance, they often rely on vast resources inaccessible to most developers.

The project, being part of Google's sponsorship activities for the FIDE World Chess Championship 2024, emphasizes ingenuity and efficiency over computing force. Participants are tasked with making smart chess programs that use limited computer power and memory, instead of relying on brute computing strength and huge amounts of data. The prize fund of the competition of $50,000 has been generously donated by Kaggle.

The initiative is inspired by a 1950 concept put forward by Claude Shannon, a mathematician who is widely recognized as the father of information theory: "Thinking rigorously about the construction of a chess-playing computer might act as a wedge in attacking other problems of a similar nature and of greater significance."

The exploration of novel, optimized techniques can address a growing complexity and scale of problems, like advancements in modeling and inference techniques and improvements upon traditional heuristic-based algorithms, beyond the field of chess.

The competition and evaluation are open to coders across the world. From the moment a participant or team joins, they are able to submit up to five agents (bots) to the competition each day. Each submission will play episodes (games) against other bots on the leaderboard that have a similar skill rating. Over time, skill ratings will go up with wins, down with losses, or even out with ties. Every bot submitted will continue to play episodes until the end of the competition, with newer bots selected to play more frequently. Once a team has reached two active submissions, older entries will be deactivated.

The project is hosted on Google's platform Kaggle – a place for data science and machine learning where users can compete in challenges, and learn through collaborative coding and tutorials.

Individuals or teams participating must submit their programs by February 11, 2025, the latest.

More information about the event and registration can be found here: FIDE & Google Efficient Chess AI Challenge | Kaggle

More activities involving Google and its products planned to enhance the Championship experience for chess fans globally will be announced shortly!