That's disheartening, but do give more evidence. To counter: participants of DARPA's Grand Challenge had just a year too, and their task was a notch harder. And they did use machine learning and other fun stuff.
Also, I think a modern gaming PC packs a hell of a punch. Especially with the new graphics cards that can run arbitrary code. But good catch - I'll inquire about the specs of the machines the competition will be held on.
The Grand Challenge teams didn't go from zero to victory in one year. They also weren't one-man efforts.
That having been said, and this is a reply to RobinZ also, for more specifics you really want to talk to someone who has written a real-time strategy game AI, or at least worked in the games industry. I recommend doing a search for articles or blog posts written by people with such experience. I also recommend getting hold of some existing game AI code to look at. (You won't be copying the code, but just to get a feel for how things are done.) Not chess ...
ITT we talk about whatever.