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Yu Nasu, (那須悠)
a Japanese computer scientist and Shogi programmer. While affiliated with the Tokyo Institute of Technology ^[1], and the Knowledge Media Laboratory, Toshiba, his research focused on natural language processing, speech recognition and speech synthesis as application of hidden Markov model and neural networks ^[2].

Shogi

Along with Hisayori Noda (Nodchip), Jun Okabe, Takahiro Suzuki, and Masatoshi Hidaka, Yu Nasu is member of The Minstrel's Ballad: Tanuki's Reign ^[3] ^[4] and subsequently the Ziosoft Computer Shogi Club, developing the Shogi playing entities the end of genesis T.N.K.evolution turbo type D ^[5] ^[6] and the 29th World Computer Shogi Champion ^[7] YaneuraOu ^[8] ^[9].

NNUE

In 2018, Yu Nasu introduced a new evaluation function based on a shallow neural network whose heavily overparametrized input layer outputs were incremental updated in make and unmake move. This approach, dubbed NNUE (ƎUИИ Efficiently Updatable Neural Networks), turned out to become extremely powerful. NNUE was used along with a Stockfish based Shogi adaptation in YaneuraOu, as well in other Shogi playing entities such as Kristallweizen-kai ^[10], apparently with superhuman AlphaZero strength ^[11]. YaneuraOu team member Hisayori Noda aka Nodchip proved that Nasu's idea also works well in western chess, yielding to Stockfish NNUE ^[12].