The quest to make an AI that can play competitive Pokémon

An AI can beat a chess grandmaster. An AI can become the StarCraft esports champion. But creating an AI that could play Pokémon at the competitive level has been a more elusive problem. Thanks to the variety of monsters, stats, moves, and items, a Pokémon battle has hundreds of thousands of factors for any player -- or machine -- to consider. But that hasn't stopped some people from trying.