Ataraxos AI defeats world's best Stratego player

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon, MIT, NYU, and Stanford have developed an AI named Ataraxos that has successfully defeated Pim Niemeijer, widely considered the greatest Stratego player in history. The AI won 15 out of 20 games, with four draws and only one loss. Stratego has long been a challenge for artificial intelligence due to its complex, imperfect-information nature, where pieces remain hidden until they engage in battle. Unlike previous breakthroughs in chess or Go, which rely on perfect information, Stratego requires managing massive amounts of hidden data over long time scales. Notably, the team achieved this milestone using only 16 GPUs and a modest budget of a few thousand dollars, demonstrating a significant advancement in efficient machine learning. This achievement marks a new milestone in game theory and AI research, proving that machines can master complex strategic environments with limited computational resources.