On 17 August 2001, he became the youngest Indian to attain the title of grandmaster, a record which was subsequently held by Koneru Humpy, Parimarjan Negi, Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu and Gukesh Dommaraju in that order.

[citation needed] His progress was such that, at the age of 14 years 5 months, he joined the Indian team for the 2000 Chess Olympiad, scoring 6.5 out of 11 rounds and earning his first Grandmaster norm.

[12][13] A few months later he came sixth on tiebreaks (a dozen players tied half a point behind Shakriyar Mamedyarov at the strong Dubai Open.

He came third in the Pune Super GM event, a point behind winner Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu but winning their individual game and was solid for India at the Chess Olympiad.

[15] This string of performances culminated in winning the World Junior Chess Championship held in Kochi, India in November 2004, scoring 10/13 with Tigran L Petrosian and Zhao Jun half a point behind.

[21] December's Chess World Cup 2005 saw Harikrishna defeat Yu Shaoteng 3-1 and Giovanni Vescovi 4-2 before being knocked out in the third round against Alexei Dreev 2.5-1.5, then tied for second at Pamplona, half a point behind Ruslan Ponomariov.

[22] In March 2006, Harikrishna tied for first (fifth on tiebreak) with winner Gabriel Sargissian, Ahmed Adly, Mamedyarov, and Igor-Alexander Nataf at the Reykjavik Open with 7/9.

[24][25] 2007 started on a bad note with 3.5/9 at the Aeroflot Open but he recovered to come third at the Montreal International, losing in the final round to tournament winner Ivanchuk.

[28][29] Harikrishna played tournaments less frequently after 2007 but finished fourth at the 2008 Corus Group B with 7.5/13,[30] followed by several team events and winning on tiebreak in September 2008 at the Spice Cup in Lubbock, United States.

[32] A last round loss to Peter Svidler saw Harikrishna slip from co-leader to shared seventh at the January 2009 Gibraltar Chess Congress,[33] but won the Nancy Rapid event the next month, a point ahead of Georg Meier.

[38] Harikrishna came tied sixth at Corus Chess Group B with 6.5/13 in January 2010 before a poor performance at the Asian Individual Championship, finishing 23rd after tiebreaks and losing 17 rating points[39][40] Some consolation came with shared first with Ehlvest at the New York International.

[44][45] May 2011 he won the Asian Chess Championship after tying with Yu Yangyi and Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son 6.5/9, shared second place on 7/9 with Robert Hess and Alejandro Ramirez at the Chicago Open half a point behind Timur Gareev.

[57][58] In January 2014, Harikrishna finished seventh in the rejigged Tata Steel Masters with 5.5/11 after a last round loss against Boris Gelfand and came 12th on tiebreak scoring 7/10 at Gibraltar soon after.

[59][60] After claiming silver at the Asian Blitz Championship,[61] he played only league games until July when he finished third on tiebreak at Biel.

[62] Despite playing for the Indian team at the previous seven Chess Olympiads, he did not participate in the 2014 edition, taking part in the Turkish league instead.

[66] An early second round exit from the World Cup against Sethuraman allowed Harikrishna to enter and tied for first from Gabriel Sargissian and Laurent Fressinet at the Isle of Man International on tiebreak, scoring 7/9.