Deep Blue Defeats Kasparov

Competitions & Benchmarks Quiet Emergence

Impact

At a glance

Date: May 1997
Era: Quiet Emergence (1994–2005)
Category: Competitions & Benchmarks
Impact: 5 / 5
Key people: Garry Kasparov
Organizations: IBM

What Happened

IBM's Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov in a six-game match (3.5-2.5). It was the first time a reigning world champion lost a match to a computer under standard tournament conditions. Deep Blue evaluated 200 million positions per second using brute-force search and hand-crafted evaluation.

Why It Mattered

A watershed cultural moment. Front-page news worldwide. Proved machines could beat the best humans at the 'ultimate intellectual game.' But it was brute force, not intelligence — a distinction that mattered.

Key People

Garry Kasparov

Organizations

Frequently asked questions

When did Deep Blue Defeats Kasparov happen?+

Deep Blue Defeats Kasparov took place in May 1997.

Who was behind Deep Blue Defeats Kasparov?+

For Deep Blue Defeats Kasparov, key people included Garry Kasparov and organizations involved were IBM.

Why was Deep Blue Defeats Kasparov important?+

Which era of AI history does Deep Blue Defeats Kasparov belong to?+

Deep Blue Defeats Kasparov is part of the Quiet Emergence era (1994–2005) — a landmark, field-defining moment in the competitions & benchmarks category.

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