With most information hidden, the game Stratego had stumped AI—until now
Artificial intelligence has finally beaten the best human Stratego player in history. A team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, MIT, New York University, and Stanford University built an artificial intelligence system named Ataraxos.
Artificial intelligence has finally beaten the best human Stratego player in history. A team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, MIT, New York University, and Stanford University built an artificial intelligence system named Ataraxos. The system defeated Pim Niemeijer, widely considered the top Stratego player ever, with 15 wins, one loss, and four draws.
Unlike past game-playing computers with massive funding, Ataraxos required only 16 graphical processing units and a few thousand dollars to train. Stratego is a board game where players command 40 hidden military pieces and try to capture the opponent flag. Identities stay hidden until pieces battle. This creates an imperfect-information game with vast hidden data unfolding over a long time scale, according to New York University researcher and co-author Eugene Vinitsky.
While computers previously conquered chess, Go, and poker, Stratego resisted reliable machine victories until now.
WireUnWired turns the supplied report into a clearer brief, preserves the original publisher and author details, and adds relevant context without hiding where the information came from.
Relevant WireUnWired coverage is connected so one story can lead into the larger technology context.
Original publication: 1 October 2026 21:58
