Electronic Arts this week announced a student competition it hopes will elevate the awareness of artificial intelligence and the importance the field has for the computer game development community.

　　The invitation-only competition invites students to demonstrate their skill sets by writing an AI program "that pits one military tank against another in a battle for supremacy." EA is providing the code free of charge to students, and all entrants will retain ownership of their intellectual property.

　　The competition, dubbed Tank Wars, will accept submissions starting January 15, 2006, through January 31, 2006. Winners will be announced March 15, 2006.

　　According to EA's John Buchanan, the publisher's lead liaison with academia, the competition is one that "emphasizes the importance of AI." According to Buchanan, it's the AI rather than graphics that will differentiate the great from the good games in the near and long-term future. "With this competition, we hope to find people with a passion for AI and understanding of the magic that makes a game truly fun to play.”

　　The competition is open to computer science students at schools including Carnegie Mellon University, Florida Technical Institute, the University of Central Florida, the University of Florida, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Southern California, Michigan State University, and Stanford University.