Gukesh Dommaraju[a] (born 29 May 2006), also known as Gukesh D, is an Indian chess grandmaster and the reigning World Chess Champion. A chess prodigy, Gukesh is the youngest player to have surpassed a FIDE rating of 2750 at the age of 17, and previously the third-youngest to have surpassed 2700 at the age of 16. He earned his grandmaster title at the age of 12 and remains the third-youngest grandmaster in the history of chess. He won one team and two individual gold medals at the 45th Chess Olympiad in 2024, as well as a bronze team medal. At the age of 18, he became the youngest Candidates Tournament winner and, subsequently, the youngest undisputed World Chess Champion, having defeated Ding Liren 7+1⁄2 to 6+1⁄2 at the World Chess Championship 2024. At the junior level, he is a multiple-gold medalist at the World Youth Championship and the Asian Youth Chess Championship. Gukesh is also a silver medalist at the Asian Games. Early life Gukesh was born on 29 May 2006 in Chennai into a Telugu family hailing from Andhra Pradesh. His father, Rajinikanth, is an ENT surgeon, and his mother, Padma, is a microbiologist.[6] He learned to play chess at the age of seven. He studied at the Velammal Vidyalaya school, Mel Ayanambakkam, Chennai. Gukesh began practicing and playing chess in 2013 for one hour, three days a week. After his good performance was acknowledged by his chess teachers, he began to participate more often and play tournaments on weekends. Career Youth Championships and rise in chess (2015–2019) Gukesh won the Under-9 section of the Asian School Chess Championships in 2015 and the World Youth Chess Championships in 2018 in the Under 12 category. He also won five gold medals at the 2018 Asian Youth Chess Championships in the U-12 individual rapid and blitz, U-12 team rapid and blitz and U-12 individual classical formats. He completed the requirements for the title of International Master in March 2017 at the 34th Cappelle-la-Grande Open. On 15 January 2019, at the age of 12 years, 7 months, and 17 days, Gukesh became the then second-youngest grandmaster in history, only surpassed by Sergey Karjakin by 17 days. The record has since been beaten by Abhimanyu Mishra, making Gukesh the third-youngest.