PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

I-Chen Wu

Also known as 吳毅成

I-Chen Wu is a computer scientist in Taiwan who builds game-playing AI, from Connect6, a board game he invented, to the deep-learning Go program CGI. After a computer science PhD at Carnegie Mellon in 1993, he presented Connect6 at the 11th Advances in Computer Games Conference in 2005, and his program NCTU6 won the Connect6 gold at the 11th Computer Olympiad in 2006. At National Chiao Tung University, his Computer Games and Intelligence lab began adding deep neural networks to CGI in December 2015, and in July 2017 CGI became the first academic Go program to beat a professional 9-dan player in formal play. Later work includes multi-labelled value networks for handicap Go and population based training for AlphaZero, and he received Taiwan's MOST Outstanding Research Award in 2021. He is a research fellow at Academia Sinica's Research Center for Information Technology Innovation and a professor at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University.

Timeline

  1. 1982–1993

    Degrees at NTU and Carnegie Mellon

    He earns a B.S. in electronic engineering at National Taiwan University in 1982 and an M.S. in computer science there in 1984. At Carnegie Mellon University, he completes a computer science PhD in 1993 with the thesis "Multilist Scheduling: A New Parallel Programming Model", advised by Hsiang-Tsung Kung.

  2. 2005–2006

    Inventing Connect6

    In 2005, he presents Connect6, a variation of the five-in-a-row game, at the 11th Advances in Computer Games Conference; its game-tree complexity is close to that of Chinese chess. His program NCTU6 wins gold in the Connect6 tournament of the 11th Computer Olympiad in Italy in 2006.

  3. 2008–2016

    From HappyGo to deep CGI

    His Computer Games and Intelligence lab at National Chiao Tung University builds the Go programs HappyGo from 2008 and Amigo, a framework for parallel Monte Carlo tree search, from 2012; Amigo is renamed CGI Go Intelligence in 2015. In December 2015, the lab starts adding deep convolutional neural networks to CGI, and from August 2016 it develops value networks and reinforcement-learning policy networks.

  4. 2011–2017

    Director and TAAI president

    From 2011 to 2016, he directs the Institute of Multimedia Engineering at National Chiao Tung University. He also serves as president of the Taiwanese Association for Artificial Intelligence from 2015 to 2017.

  5. 2017

    Beating a professional 9-dan

    In July 2017, CGI wins two games against the professional 9-dan player Chun-Hsun Chou at IEEE FUZZ 2017 in Naples, the first academic Go program to beat a professional 9-dan player in formal competition. At the first World AI Go Open in Ordos, China, in August 2017, CGI wins all five preliminary games and takes second place.

  6. 2017–2020

    Multi-labelled value networks and PBT

    In 2017, he coauthors the multi-labelled value network, which trains Go win rates for different komi settings at once and gives value-network programs a way to play handicap games. He becomes an editor-in-chief of the ICGA Journal in 2017, alongside Mark Winands and Tristan Cazenave. A 2020 paper from his team, accepted at AAAI 2020, uses population based training to tune AlphaZero and reaches a 74% win rate against ELF OpenGo.

  7. 2018–2021

    ICGA vice president and MOST award

    He serves as vice president of the International Computer Games Association from 2018 to 2021 and as president of the Taiwan Computer Games Association from 2019 to 2021. Team members Bo-Chun Hsu and Kuei-Ting Kuo take first and third places in the 2020 Championship Cup of the AWS DeepRacer League. In 2021, he receives Taiwan's MOST Outstanding Research Award and the IICM Medal of Honor.

  8. As of October 2026

    Research fellow and NYCU professor

    He joins Academia Sinica's Research Center for Information Technology Innovation as a research fellow in September 2020 and becomes executive officer of its AI Computing Center. He is a professor at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University's Institute of Data Science and Engineering. With Ti-Rong Wu's group, he coauthors MAPLE, a policy evaluation method for AlphaZero in imperfect-information games, presented at IEEE CoG in September 2026.

  1. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI from 1961 to 2025, with a year-by-year chart.
  2. The United States employs an estimated 53% of people in our data with a known employment countryOur estimates of where AI careers are concentrated now and how countries’ shares of dated positions changed over time.
  3. 46% of living people in our data with known birth and employment countries work outside their birth countryOur estimate of cross-border careers in AI, from country of birth and the country of each current organization.
  4. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionOur estimates of where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led, from education records in cited biographies.

Sources and credits

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  1. I-Chen Wu - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  2. I-Chen Wu - Chess Programming Wiki chessprogramming.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  3. Wu, I-Chen Homepage: Honors & Awards citi.sinica.edu.tw. Checked 19 October 2026.
  4. Introduction to Go Programs Developed at CGI Lab cgi.lab.nycu.edu.tw. Checked 19 October 2026.
  5. Wu, I-Chen Homepage: Work Experience homepage.citi.sinica.edu.tw. Checked 19 October 2026.
  6. [1705.10701] Multi-Labelled Value Networks for Computer Go arxiv.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  7. [2003.06212] Accelerating and Improving AlphaZero Using Population Based Training arxiv.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  8. I-Chen Wu - National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University Academic Hub scholar.nycu.edu.tw. Checked 19 October 2026.
  9. 2026 Publication Lists - Institute of Information Science, Academia Sinica iis.sinica.edu.tw. Checked 19 October 2026.