Louis Victor Allis (born 19 May 1965) is a Dutch

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...

working in the

artificial intelligence (AI) Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

field. In his graduate work, he revealed AI solutions for

Connect Four Connect Four (also known as Connect 4, Four Up, Plot Four, Find Four, Captain's Mistress, Four in a Row, Drop Four, and Gravitrips in the Soviet Union) is a two-player connection board game, in which the players choose a color and then take tur ...

Qubic 3D tic-tac-toe, also known by the trade name Qubic, is an abstract strategy board game, generally for two players. It is similar in concept to traditional tic-tac-toe but is played in a cubical array of cells, usually 4x4x4. Players take turns pla ...

, and

Gomoku ''Gomoku'', also called ''Five in a Row'', is an abstract strategy board game. It is traditionally played with Go pieces (black and white stones) on a Go board. It is played using a 15×15 board while in the past a 19×19 board was standard. Be ...

. His dissertation introduced two new game search techniques: proof-number search and dependency-based search. Proof-number search has seen further successful application in

computer Go Computer Go is the field of artificial intelligence (AI) dedicated to creating a computer program that plays the traditional board game Go. The field is sharply divided into two eras. Before 2015, the programs of the era were weak. The best ...

tactical search and many other games.

Career

Allis holds a Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence from Maastricht University, The Netherlands, and graduated ''cum laude'' with a M. Sc. in Computer Science from the

Vrije Universiteit The Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (abbreviated as ''VU Amsterdam'' or simply ''VU'' when in context) is a public research university in Amsterdam, Netherlands, being founded in 1880. The VU Amsterdam is one of two large, publicly funded research ...

, The Netherlands. He has more than 30 publications to his name; the majority of his published work reports on research in search technologies. He started his career in 1987 as a freelance teacher, course developer and mentor of various AMBI courses for NOVI. Allis has lectured at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam as an assistant professor in artificial intelligence. In 1992, his program Victoria won the 4th

Computer Olympiad The Computer Olympiad is a multi-games event in which computer programs compete against each other. For many games, the Computer Olympiads are an opportunity to claim the "world's best computer player" title. First contested in 1989, the majori ...

in the game of

without losing a single game. His programs had also won first places at the Computer Olympiad in games of

(1989),

Awari Oware is an abstract strategy game among the mancala family of board games (pit and pebble games) played worldwide with slight variations as to the layout of the game, number of players and strategy of play. Its origin is uncertain but it is wid ...

(1990, 1991, 1992), and

(1991), thus making him winner of all four early Computer Olympiads. He co-authored a solution of 4×4×4 Qubic game using his proof-number search technique. In 1995 he joined Bolesian (a knowledge technology firm in the Netherlands which is a daughter company of Capgemini and specialized in developing advanced systems based on artificial intelligence) as a senior consultant and manager. In 1997 he co-founded Quintiq and was appointed as the company's CEO. Allis relocated to the

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

office Quintiq in 2010, remaining CEO and a co-owner. Quintiq was acquired by Dassault Systemes in July 2014.

Notes

External links

Allis's home page
(archived)
Quintiq company siteVictor Allis
at Chess Programming Wiki. 1965 births Living people Dutch computer scientists Dutch chief executives in the technology industry Artificial intelligence researchers Go (game) researchers People from Gemert-Bakel Maastricht University alumni Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam alumni {{compu-scientist-stub