IBM Creates Supercomputer Game Show Genius

IBM has created the world's greatest pub quizzer: a supercomputer that the company reckons can match the intelligence of the best trivia buffs.

The electronic mastermind, Watson, has been entered into popular American TV game show 'Jeopardy!', where it will be pitted against some of the best Jeopardy players of all time.

The New York Times reports that researchers at IBM have been developing the supercomputer over the last three years, making it capable of understanding any question put to it in 'natural language' and coming up with factual answers to the questions from the data stored in its 'brain'.

The data is based on tens of millions of documents stored in the system, covering all topics including, cultural, history and literature.

Eric Brown, Watson's research manager, said: “A question can be posed in natural language and, having read a whole bunch of information, data, documents, it can come up with a very precise answer to that question.”