In May 1997 a different kind of Chess game began, which draw the
attention of the whole world. It was a game between a man and a
machine. The man was none other than the world champion chess
player Garry Kasparov, and the machine was IBM’s supercomputer
Deep Blue. After several days and six matches, Deep Blue beat
the world champion on 11 May, 1997 – two wins for Deep, one win
for Garry Kaparov and three draws. Yesterday, IBM celebrated the
15 anniversary of Deep Blue’s historic victory. Fifteen years
ago, Deep Blue was part of a mission that culminated in IBM’s
creation of a supercomputer that beat world champion Garry
Kasparov in a chess contest. Researchers were trying to check
the ability of artificially intelligent computers to handle the
complex calculations that could help discovering new medical
drugs; do the broad financial modeling to identify trends;
handle large database searches; and perform massive calculations
needed in many fields of science. To run the experiment on the
limits of artificial i