Gran Turismo Sophy (GT Sophy) is a revolutionary superhuman racing agent developed through the collaboration between Sony AI, Polyphony Digital (PDI), and Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE). The agent was designed to compete against top Gran Turismo® Sport drivers and elevate their gaming experience.
GT Sophy was trained using novel deep reinforcement learning techniques, including state-of-the-art learning algorithms and training scenarios developed by Sony AI, using Gran Turismo Sport, a real driving simulator, and by leveraging SIE’s cloud gaming infrastructure for massive scale training.
Sony AI developed the AI agent, GT Sophy, and the novel deep reinforcement learning platform and techniques needed to train the agent from scratch.
Polyphony Digital (PDI), the creator of Gran Turismo, provided expertise in racing, as well as access to Gran Turismo Sport, APIs and the world’s top GT driver community.
Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) enhanced their cloud gaming infrastructure to enable the massive scale training of GT Sophy.
Driving Skills
Through training, GT Sophy mastered the following driving skills needed to compete with the top GT drivers at a world championship level.
Driver Testimonials
GT Sophy’s capabilities were tested against the world’s top GT drivers. Here’s what they said about racing with GT Sophy.
“I completely forgot that I was playing against an AI. It was really fun. I want to race with the agent more in the future”
TAKUMA MIYAZONO
Triple Champion at the 2020 World Finals of the FIA Gran Turismo Championships
“It was really exciting to see GT Sophy’s racing technique. I got a lot of inspiration from her.”
EMILY JONES
Representative of Audi in the Manufacturer Series of the FIA Gran Turismo Championships 2020 World Finals
“GT Sophy showed us new possibilities that we hadn’t imagined before.”
IGOR FRAGA
Champion at the first-ever FIA Gran Turismo Championships Nations Cup 2018 World Finals
“I think AI agents will be great companions for drivers.”
SHOTARO RYU
Runner-up at the 2019 Japan National Sports Festival Esports Championship Gran Turismo Division (Youth Category)
An AI Breakthrough
There have been several AI breakthroughs to-date, including AI agents that have mastered arcade games, complex strategy games such as chess, shogi and Go as well as other real-time, multiplayer strategy games.
GT Sophy takes game AI to the next level, tackling the challenge of a hyper-realistic simulator by mastering real-time control of vehicles with complex dynamics, all while operating within inches of opponents.
The Project “Outracing champion Gran Turismo drivers with deep reinforcement learning” was recognized as an AI breakthrough and is featured on the cover of Nature’s Feb 2022 edition.
Racing against a former GT top driver and PDI members begins for testing purposes.
Jun 2021
One on One time-trial races held between GT Sophy and Emily Jones of Australia, Valerio Gallo of Italy, and Igor Fraga of Brazil.
Research paper “Autonomous Overtaking in Gran Turismo Sport Using Curriculum Reinforcement Learning” published in collaboration with University of Zurich.
Jul 2, 2021
1st Race Together 2021 event held to race against top human drivers. While GT Sophy has the best lap time in all three races and took first place in two of the three races, GT Top Driver Team wins against the GT Sophy Team with a total score of 86 to 70.
Oct 21, 2021
2nd Race Together 2021 event held against top human drivers. This time GT Sophy wins first and second place in all three races and wins the total team score by 104 to 52.
Feb 2022
Research Paper “Outracing champion Gran Turismo drivers with deep reinforcement learning” from Sony AI is published in Nature.
July 2022
GT Sophy had an exhibition race against four of the world’s top GT drivers at the Gran Turismo World Series 2022 (GTWS 2022) Showdown Event at the Red Bull Hangar-7 in Salzburg, Austria.
The Making of Gran Turismo SophyDocumentary movieFeb 10, 2022
Learn more about the vision and the story behind how Gran Turismo Sophy was created in this Making of Gran Turismo Sophy video.
The Team Behind GT Sophy - Part1Documentary SeriesAug 10, 2022
In this first installment of our new video series, “The Team Behind GT Sophy,”we trace the project from its humble beginnings, when a Sony AI intern ran racing simulations on nine PlayStations 24 hours a day in his Zurich apartment.
The Team Behind GT Sophy - Part2Documentary SeriesAug 22, 2022
In this episode the team at Sony AI take the racing agent they have trained to play “Gran Turismo” and put it the ultimate test. At the April 2021 Race Together event, GT Sophy would face off against some of the finest human “Gran Turismo” players in the world.
The Team Behind GT Sophy - Part3Documentary SeriesSep 08, 2022
In the third and final installment of Sony AI’s new video series, the AI racing agent GT Sophy gets a rematch against the world’s best esports champions in a rematch after falling short in its initial face off.
