The MoGo artificial intelligence engine defeated professional 5th DAN Catalin Taranu in a 9x9 game of Go during the Go Tournament in Paris in late March. The victory, the first officially sanctioned "non blitz" victory for a machine over a Go Master, is considered a significant achievement because the game is patterned more after human thought than chess and its possible combinations exceed the number of particles in the universe. Taranu says the system was close to reaching the level of DAN in performance. The computer did lose to Taranu in a 19x19 configuration with a nine-stone handicap. The French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA) developed the artificial intelligence engine. "The software used in this victory--the result of a collaboration between INRIA, the CNRS(1), LRI(2) and CMAP(3)--is based on innovative technologies that can be used in numerous different areas, particularly in the conservation of resources which is such a vital issue when it comes to tackling environmental problems," says INRIA researcher Olivier Teytaud, who led the MoGo team.