DeepZenGo, a Japanese AI program, will take on several human challengers during a Go competition in Japan from March 21 to 23.

According to an announcement released by the Japan Go Association (Nihon Ki-in), the upcoming World Go Championship will be the first international Go tournament in which an AI program competes with three world-class Go players from Asia. DeepZenGo is the joint product of a software developer and Tokyo University researchers.

Mi Yuting, the 21-year-old Chinese challenger, told media on March 20 that top AI programs are certainly capable of defeating human players. Mi said he played against DeepZenGo a month ago, racking up some victories and some losses. Echoing Mi, Japanese player Yuta Lyama and Korean player Park Jeong Hwan also acknowledged that AI can have some advantages over human players.

“I think AI is better than human players in fast games, whereas human players normally do better in slow games,” said Hideki Kato, the developer of DeepZenG