Sony AI’s Pete Wurman to Deliver Keynote at IJCAI on Training the World’s Best Gran Turismo™ Racer: Gran Turismo Sophy™

Tokyo, Japan – July 22, 2022 -- Sony AI, a leader in human-centric artificial intelligence (AI) established with the mission to unleash human imagination and creativity with AI, today announced that Peter Wurman, Director, Sony AI America, will deliver a keynote presentation at the 31st International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI), the leading conference in the field of AI, taking place July 23-29, 2022 in Vienna, Austria.

Wurman’s keynote, “Training the World’s Best Gran Turismo Racer”, will take place on Tuesday, July 26 at 2:00 p.m. CET. In his presentation, Wurman will share details on Sony AI’s breakthrough game AI research Gran Turismo Sophy™ (GT Sophy) and how the company trained agents for Gran Turismo™ to compete with the world’s best e-sports drivers.

“I am honored to be among the distinguished group of individuals presenting at IJCAI this year, and for the opportunity to share our work on GT Sophy with the larger AI community,” said Wurman. “Our work in this area demonstrates the power of AI to deliver new gaming and entertainment experiences for both creators and players. It is our hope that GT Sophy will help inspire players to reach new levels in their technique and creativity.”

A Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Wurman specializes in AI, robotics, complex systems, and electronic auctions. His additional honors include National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductee (2022), and the IEEE/IFR Invention and Entrepreneurship Award (2008). Wurman has also been granted more than 60 patents and has published more than 50 technical papers.
View his full profile here.

Mastering the complex sport of race car driving in the highly realistic driving simulator Gran Turismo™ (GT) Sport by GT Sophy was heralded as a new breakthrough in AI. It was published in the February 10th, 2022 issue of Nature in an article titled, Outracing Champion Gran Turismo Drivers with Deep Reinforcement Learning.

Details on the Gran Turismo Sophy project, technology and the Race Together 2021 challenge races can be found at the Gran Turismo Sophy site.

About IJCAI
International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence is a non-profit corporation founded in California, in 1969 for scientific and educational purposes, including dissemination of information on Artificial Intelligence at conferences in which cutting-edge scientific results are presented and through dissemination of materials presented at these meetings in form of Proceedings, books, video recordings, and other educational materials. IJCAI consists of two divisions: the Conference Division and the AI Journal Division. IJCAI conferences present premier international gatherings of AI researchers and practitioners and they have been held biennially in odd-numbered years since 1969.

About Sony AI
Sony AI Inc. was founded on April 1, 2020, with the mission to "unleash human imagination and creativity with AI." Sony AI combines Sony Group's imaging and sensing technology, robotics technology, and entertainment assets such as movies, music, and games to transform with cutting edge artificial intelligence R&D to accelerate all of Sony's business areas and create new business opportunities. To achieve this, Sony AI has launched three flagship projects aimed at the evolution and application of AI technology in the areas of "Gaming," "Imaging & Sensing," and "Gastronomy." Sony AI will promote various exploratory research related to these flagship projects and other important themes, including AI ethics, in the physical and virtual worlds. For more information visit https://ai.sony.