Google DeepMind announced a partnership with Fenris Creations, the studio behind EVE Online, taking a minority stake as part of a 120 million dollar management buyout. The deal gives DeepMind access to a 20-year-old virtual universe spanning over 7,000 star systems, serving as a training ground for next-generation AI systems. Research will focus on long-horizon planning, memory, and continual learning in an offline version of EVE Online running on local servers. DeepMind highlighted its gaming track record, with AlphaGo defeating the Go world champion in 2016 and AlphaStar reaching Grandmaster level in StarCraft II in 2019. The studio specified that this partnership aims at fundamental research rather than developing game features.
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