ChatGPT-maker OpenAI has beaten Elon Musk’s Grok in the final of a tournament to crown the best artificial intelligence (AI) chess player.
Historically, tech companies have often used chess to assess the progress and abilities of a computer, with modern chess machines virtually unbeatable against even the top human players.
But this competition did not involve computers designed for chess – instead it was held between AI programs designed for everyday use.
OpenAI’s o3 model emerged unbeaten in the tournament and defeated xAI’s model Grok 4 in the final, adding fuel to the fire of an ongoing rivalry between the two firms.
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Musk and Sam Altman, both co-founders of OpenAI, claim their latest models are the smartest in the world.
Google’s model Gemini claimed third place in the tournament, after beating a different OpenAI model.
But these AI, while talented at many everyday tasks, are still improving at chess – with Grok making a number of errors during its final games including losing its queen repeatedly.
“Up until the semi finals, it seemed like nothing would be able to stop Grok 4 on its way to winning the event,” Pedro Pinhata, a writer for Chess.com, said in its coverage.
“Despite a few moments of weakness, X’s AI seemed to be by far the strongest chess player… But the illusion fell through on the last day of the tournament.”
He said Grok’s “unrecognizable” and “blundering” play enabled o3 to claim a succession of “convincing wins”.
“Grok made so many mistakes in these games, but OpenAI did not,” said chess grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura during his livestream on the final.
Before Thursday’s final, Musk had said in a post on X that xAI’s prior success in the tournament had been a “side effect” and it “spent almost no effort on chess”.
