A computer called Akara 2010 has beaten a human at shogi, otherwise known as Japanese chess, for the first time, in six hours , over the course of 86 moves.

IBM’s Deep Blue beat Gary Kasparov in 1997, but western chess is a relatively simple game, with only about 10¹²³ possible games existing that can be played out. Shogi is far more complex, offering about 10²²⁴ possible games (Akara is apparently a Buddhist term meaning 10²²⁴, the newspaper reports).