The Chennai-born prodigy defeated defending champion, China's Ding Liren, in a dramatic match staged in Singapore which he had entered as the challenger. The FIDE World Chess Championship carries a $2.5m (£1.96m) prize fund.
It marked the peak to date of his career, his greatest moment in a long string of achievements.
Gukesh became a grandmaster aged 12 years and seven months and even then, he was upfront about the fact that he dreamt of being the world champion.
he confessed at the press conference following his dramatic win against Ding, he just didn't think it would happen so soon.
"Throughout the match I had several chances to clinch victories and many of the games which would have put me in the front foot quite seriously. But once I was getting close I was getting nervous and I was not able to finish him off," Gukesh told the BBC after the win.
"...And then all of a sudden...it was a sudden change and I could not process all the new information so quickly."
Gukesh is the 18th world champion since Wilhelm Steinitz won what is considered the first title match way back in 1886.
Born in May 2006, Gukesh is also, by far, the youngest player to have ascended this pinnacle.
He comfortably improved upon the prior record held by Garry Kasparov (born April 1963) who was 22 when he won the title in Moscow in November 1985 by beating Anatoly Karpov.
The game match was tied with two wins each after 13 games. It looked as though the the game was heading for a draw.
In that case, there would have been tiebreaks played at progressively shorter time controls.
Gukesh has interests outside of chess too - he meditates, swims and plays tennis.
His stated goals are simple - he wants to be the best chess player in the World – supplanting the current number one, Magnus Carlsen.
He also wants to have a "very long career at the top". As he sees it, the title is only one step, albeit a very important one in that life journey.
You must be logged in to post a comment.