Microsoft Centralizes Artificial Intelligence Efforts as Injured Executive Steps Down
September 29 2016 - 11:57AM
Dow Jones News
By Jay Greene
Microsoft Corp. is concentrating its artificial-intelligence
efforts under one roof as veteran executive Qi Lu stepped down to
focus on recovering from a bicycle accident.
Mr. Lu, a highly regarded executive in charge of the Office
products and Bing search-engine businesses, was injured months ago.
His recovery has been slow, a person familiar with the matter
said.
Mr. Lu expects to return to Microsoft in an advisory role to
Chief Executive Satya Nadella and co-founder Bill Gates, the
company said.
Microsoft changed two of the top jobs at the company as Mr. Lu
exits.
Harry Shum, who has led the company's research efforts, will now
take responsibility for the artificial-intelligence strategy,
Microsoft said.
He will oversee 5,000 employees, including the 1,000 researchers
he led in his previous job, as the head of a newly formed AI
division. Nearly all of the workers are coming from the
applications and services group.
The moves come as Microsoft ramps up its efforts in AI, an
emerging and hotly contested area where Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com
Inc. and Facebook Inc. all are investing heavily.
Microsoft also named Rajesh Jha executive vice president of the
newly created Office Products Group. In that post, Mr. Jha will
lead the engineering and development teams for products that
include Office, Skype and OneNote. Most recently, he was corporate
vice president for Office 365.
News of Mr. Lu's departure was earlier reported by Recode.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 29, 2016 11:42 ET (15:42 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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