AlphaStar, first AI to defeat a top professional player in StarCraft II, is demonstrated in a live exhibition match

After a clean sweep in December in a series of Protoss v Protoss matches, the Artificial Intelligence AlphaStar once again challenged Team Liquid’s Grzegorz “MaNa” Komincz in a live exhibition match. This live exhibition match was part of a demonstration to show how DeepMind develops learning algorithms and how far their research has come since BlizzCon.

StarCraft II posed a challenge for artificial intelligence developers. While games such as Mario and Quake III Arena Capture the Flag provide a more simple and straightforward approach to gameplay, StarCraft II has more nuances. The game is played in real time, there is long term planning involved, there isn’t a single best strategy to the game, and there are hundreds of different units needed to be controlled at once.

To say AlphaStar is impressive would be a massive understatement. To learn about how AlphaStar works and how it managed to beat one of the top StarCraft II players of all time, visit the official DeepMind blog.