A Google algorithm has narrowly beaten the world's best player in the ancient Chinese board game of Go, reaffirming the arrival of what its developers say is a groundbreaking new form of artificial intelligence. AlphaGo took the first of three scheduled games against the brash 19-year-old Chinese world number one Ke Jie, who after the match anointed the programme as the new "Go god". AlphaGo stunned the Go community and futurists a year ago when it trounced South Korean grandmaster Lee Sedol four games to one. That marked the first time a computer programme had beaten a top player in a full contest and was hailed as a landmark for artificial intelligence. This week's battle, in the eastern Chinese city of Wuzhen between Ke and an updated version of AlphaGo, was preceded by intense speculation about whether the world's top player could be beaten by a computer.