Ataraxos Beats Stratego Champion 15-1-4 on Just 16 GPUs
Updated
Updated · Ars Technica · Oct 1
Ataraxos Beats Stratego Champion 15-1-4 on Just 16 GPUs
3 articles · Updated · Ars Technica · Oct 1
Summary
Ataraxos routed Pim Niemeijer — widely regarded as Stratego’s best player — with 15 wins, one loss and four draws, clearing a milestone that had eluded earlier AI systems.
Just 16 GPUs and a few thousand dollars were enough to train it, a sharp contrast with DeepMind’s earlier DeepNash effort in a game long seen as unusually resistant to machines.
Stratego’s difficulty comes from 40 hidden pieces that can start in more than a decillion arrangements, with identities revealed only through combat.
Games can stretch to 2,000 moves and hinge on calibrated bluffing, forcing an AI to manage long-horizon uncertainty rather than the smaller hidden-information space seen in poker.