A Google artificial intelligence programme defeated a Chinese grand master at the ancient board game Go on Tuesday, a major feather in the cap for the firm's AI ambitions as it looks to woo Beijing to gain re-entry into the country.

In the first of three planned games in the eastern water town of Wuzhen, the AlphaGo programme held off China's world number one Ke Jie in front of Chinese officials and Google parent Alphabet's chief executive Eric Schmidt.

The victory over the world's top player - which many thought would take decades to achieve - underlines the potential of artificial intelligence to take on humans at complex tasks.

Wooing Beijing may be less simple. The game streamed live on Google-owned YouTube, while executives from the DeepMind unit that developed the programme sent out updates live on Twitter. Both are blocked by China, as is Google search.