Sony AI Announces New Gran Turismo Sophy™ Milestone with Gran Turismo World Series 2022 Exhibition Race

Demonstrates progress toward goal of making the Gran Turismo Sophy™ accessible to the greater Gran Turismo driver community

TOKYO, Aug. 1, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Sony AI this week demonstrated its most recent progress in the development of Gran Turismo Sophy™ (GT Sophy)with an exhibition race against four of the world's top Gran Turismo™ (GT) drivers at the Gran Turismo World Series 2022 (GTWS 2022) Showdown Event organized by Polyphony Digital Inc. (PDI), which took place July 30-31 at the Red Bull Hangar-7 in Salzburg, Austria.

Unveiled in February 2022, GT Sophy is the first superhuman AI agent to outrace the world's best drivers of the highly realistic PlayStation^® 4 racing simulation game, GT Sport. The AI breakthrough, featured in the February 10^th, 2022 issue of Nature, demonstrates how AI can deliver new gaming experiences to players.

Since its unveiling, Sony AI, in partnership with PDI and Sony Interactive Entertainment, has continued to evolve GT Sophy's capabilities and explore ways in which Sony AI can make GT Sophy more accessible to the greater Gran Turismo driver community.

In support of that goal, PDI and Sony AI held an exhibition race featuring GT Sophy going head-to-head with top GT drivers Valerio Gallo, Igor Fraga, Emily Jones, and Tomoaki Yamanaka. The race was broadcast during the GTWS 2022 Showdown Nations Cup livestream and is available on the Gran Turismo World Series 2022 Championships website.

"From the beginning, our focus for GT Sophy has been to develop a game AI agent that could not only race competitively against the top Gran Turismo drivers, but one that would be fun for the top drivers — and eventually all GT drivers — to race against," said Michael Spranger, Chief Operating Officer, Sony AI. "Until now, only select members of the Gran Turismo racing community have had the opportunity to race against GT Sophy. This exhibition race is one more step toward making the GT Sophy AI available to all."

GTWS 2022 marks the fifth year of the official competitive Gran Turismo Championships. The international championship competition is open to anyone who has a copy of Gran Turismo™ 7.

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

Sony AI Inc. was founded on April 1, 2020, with the mission to "unleash human imagination and creativity with AI." Sony AI aims to combine cutting edge research and development of artificial intelligence with Sony Group's imaging and sensing technology, robotics technology, and entertainment assets such as movies, music, and games to accelerate Sony's transformation into an AI powered company and to create new business opportunities. To achieve this, Sony AI has launched four flagship projects to date aimed at the evolution and application of AI technology in the areas of Gaming, Imaging & Sensing, Gastronomy, and AI Ethics. For more information visit https://ai.sony

Gran Turismo™ is a video game developed by Polyphony Digital Inc., a subsidiary of Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc. Having launched in Japan first in 1997, the multi-award-winning franchise is regarded as the best and most authentic driving simulator due to true-to-life graphics, authentic physics technology and careful attention to detail. Polyphony and its famed creator Kazunori Yamauchi have revolutionized the racing game genre.
https://www.gran-turismo.com/
https://www.polyphony.co.jp/

Recognized as a global leader in interactive and digital entertainment, Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) is responsible for the PlayStation® brand and family of products and services. PlayStation has delivered innovation to the market since the launch of the original PlayStation in Japan in 1994. The PlayStation family of products and services include PlayStation®5, PlayStation®4, PlayStation®VR, PlayStation™Store, PlayStation®Plus, PlayStation™Now, and acclaimed PlayStation software titles from PlayStation Studios. Headquartered in San Mateo, California, SIE is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Group Corporation and has global functions in California, London and Tokyo.

SOURCE Sony AI