REDMOND, Wash., Sept. 29, 2016 /CNW/ -- Microsoft Corp.
announced on Thursday it has formed the Microsoft AI and Research
Group, bringing together Microsoft's world-class research
organization with more than 5,000 computer scientists and engineers
focused on the company's AI product efforts. The new group will be
led by computer vision luminary Harry
Shum, a 20-year Microsoft veteran whose career has spanned
leadership roles across Microsoft Research and Bing
engineering.
Microsoft is dedicated to democratizing AI for every person and
organization, making it more accessible and valuable to everyone
and ultimately enabling new ways to solve some of society's
toughest challenges. Today's announcement builds on the
company's deep focus on AI and will accelerate the delivery of new
capabilities to customers across agents, apps, services and
infrastructure.
In addition to Shum's existing leadership team, several of the
company's engineering leaders and teams will join the newly formed
group including Information Platform, Cortana and Bing, and Ambient
Computing and Robotics teams led by David
Ku, Derrick Connell and
Vijay Mital, respectively. All
combined, the Microsoft AI and Research Group will encompass AI
product engineering, basic and applied research labs, and New
Experiences and Technologies (NExT).
"We live in a time when digital technology is transforming our
lives, businesses and the world, but also generating an exponential
growth in data and information," said Satya
Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. "At Microsoft, we are focused on
empowering both people and organizations, by democratizing access
to intelligence to help solve our most pressing challenges. To do
this, we are infusing AI into everything we deliver across our
computing platforms and experiences."
"Microsoft has been working in artificial intelligence since the
beginning of Microsoft Research, and yet we've only begun to
scratch the surface of what's possible," said Shum, executive vice
president of the Microsoft AI and Research Group. "Today's move
signifies Microsoft's commitment to deploying intelligent
technology and democratizing AI in a way that changes our lives and
the world around us for the better. We will significantly expand
our efforts to empower people and organizations to achieve more
with our tools, our software and services, and our powerful,
global-scale cloud computing capabilities."
Microsoft is taking a four-pronged approach to its initiative to
democratize AI:
- Agents. Harness AI to fundamentally change human and
computer interaction through agents such as Microsoft's digital
personal assistant Cortana
- Applications. Infuse every application, from the photo
app on people's phones to Skype and Office 365, with
intelligence
- Services. Make these same intelligent capabilities that
are infused in Microsoft's apps —cognitive capabilities such as
vision and speech, and machine analytics — available to every
application developer in the world
- Infrastructure. Build the world's most powerful AI
supercomputer with Azure and make it available to anyone, to enable
people and organizations to harness its power
More information about this approach can be found here.
For 25 years, Microsoft Research has contributed to advancing
the state-of-the-art of computing through its groundbreaking basic
and applied research that has been shared openly with the industry
and academic communities, and with product groups within Microsoft.
The organization has contributed innovative technologies to nearly
every product and service Microsoft has produced in this timeframe,
from Office and Xbox to HoloLens and Windows. More recently, Shum
has expanded the organization's mission to include the incubation
of disruptive technologies and new businesses.
"My job has been to take Microsoft Research, an amazing asset
for the company, and make it even more of a value-creation engine
for Microsoft and our industry," Shum said. "Today's move to bring
research and engineering even closer will accelerate our ability to
deliver more personal and intelligent computing experiences to
people and organizations worldwide."
The Microsoft AI and Research Group is hiring for positions in
its labs and offices worldwide. More information can be found at
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/careers/.
Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT" @microsoft) is the leading platform and
productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world, and
its mission is to empower every person and every organization on
the planet to achieve more.
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SOURCE Microsoft Corp.