South Korean professional Go player Lee Sedol is seen on the screen during the Google DeepMind Challenge Match against Google's artificial intelligence program, AlphaGo. (Photo : Getty Images)
Ke Jie, the current top Go player in the world, is expected to play against AlphaGo, Google's artificial intelligence program, in April.
The match between the two will take place in Wuzhen, China's Eastern Province of Zhejiang.
It's been reported that China, Japan and South Korea may each form a team and challenge AlphaGo if Ke loses the best-of-three match.
Go is a game invented around 2,500 years ago in China and is still a popular game across East Asia. Players take turns placing black and white stones on a grid as they seek to capture patches of territory by surrounding them.
AlphaGo is a computer program developed by Google DeepMind to play the board game Go. It is said to be the first computer Go program to beat a professional Go player without setting up handicaps on a full-sized 19x19 board.
It has won a five-game Go match against Lee Sedol, the 18-time world champion from Korea.
After this, Ke posted a statement on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform. He said: "Even if AlphaGo can defeat Lee Sedol, it cannot beat me."
Last Month, a mysterious Go player named "Master" was later revealed as the updated version of AlphaGo. It has won 60 out of 60 games against some of the world's best Go players.
The arrival of "Master" in China has shaken human Go players, pending thousands of years of the game's strategic wisdom.
Ke then acknowledged that artificial intelligence has surpassed humans in the game.
"After humanity spent thousands of years improving our tactics, computers tell us that humans are completely wrong. I would go as far as to say not a single human has touched the edge of the truth of Go," Ke said.
According to Yangtse.com, Chinese firms will be the ones who will sponsor the match between Ke Jie and AlphaGo. It's been reported that the total prize money will be more than $1 million.
