May 1997Peer-reviewedWell documented
Deep Blue Defeats Kasparov
On the timeline · around May 1997 ·
What happened
In a six-game rematch in New York, IBM's Deep Blue became the first computer to defeat a reigning world chess champion, Garry Kasparov, under standard tournament conditions, winning 3.5–2.5. The machine used hundreds of processors and custom chips to evaluate millions of positions per second.
Why it matters
Deep Blue's victory was a symbolic milestone — a computer beating the best human at a game long seen as a pinnacle of human intellect.