Microsoft forms major AI research group

Microsoft has formed a new research group focused on the company’s AI product efforts.

The Microsoft AI and Research Group will bring together more than 5000 computer scientists and engineers, and will be led by 20-year Microsoft veteran Harry Shum.

It will seek to accelerate the delivery of new AI capabilities to customers, in line with Microsoft’s goal of democratising AI to make it accessible to all users and organisations.

Several existing Microsoft engineering teams, including Information Platform, Cortana and Bing, as well as Ambient Computing and Robotics, will also join the new group.

Combined, the group will encompass AI product engineering, basic and applied research and new experiences and technologies.

Microsoft’s approach to democratising AI involves infusing the capability into every application, including Skype and Office 365. These include cognitive capabilities such as vision and speech, as well as machine learning. The company also plans to make these capabilities available to every application developer in the world.

On the infrastructure front, the company plans to build the world’s most powerful AI supercomputer with Azure and make it available to anyone. Finally, the company plans to harness AI to change human-computer interaction with agents such as the Cortana digital personal assistant.

“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,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said.

“At Microsoft, we are focused on empowering both people and organisations, by democratising 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.”

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