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Google Continues A.I. Expansion
Google Inc is growing its artificial intelligence area, hiring more than half a dozen leading academics and experts in the field and announcing a partnership with Oxford University to “accelerate” its efforts.
Google will make a “substantial contribution” to establish a research partnership with Oxford’s computer science and engineering departments, the company said on Thursday regarding its work to develop the intelligence of machines and software, often to emulate human-like intelligence.
Google did not provide any financial details about the partnership, saying only in a post on its blog that it will include a program of student internships and a series of joint lectures and workshops “to share knowledge and expertise.”
Google, which is based in Mountain View, California, is building up its artificial intelligence capabilities as it strives to maintain its dominance in the Internet search market and to develop new products such as robotics and self-driving cars. In January Google acquired artificial intelligence company Deep Mind for $400 million according to media reports.
The new hires will be joining Google’s Deep Mind team, including three artificial intelligence experts whose work has focused on improving computer visual recognition systems. Among that team is Oxford Professor Andrew Zisserman, a three-time winner of the Marr Prize for computer vision.
The four founders of Dark Blue Labs will also be joining Google where they will be will be leading efforts to help machines “better understand what users are saying to them.”
Google said that three of the professors will hold joint appointments at Oxford, continuing to work part time at the university.
Google Buys A.I. Firm
Google has purchased DeepMind Technologies, an artificial intelligence company in London, reportedly for $400 million.
A Google representative confirmed the via email, but said the company’s isn’t providing any additional information at this time.
News website Re/code said in a report this past Sunday that Google was paying $400 million for the company, founded by games prodigy and neuroscientist Demis Hassabis, Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman.
The company claims on its website that it combines “the best techniques from machine learning and systems neuroscience to build powerful general-purpose learning algorithms.” It said its first commercial applications are in simulations, e-commerce and games.
Google announced this month it was paying $3.2 billion in cash to acquire Nest, a maker of smart smoke alarms and thermostats, in what is seen as a bid to expand into the connected home market. It also acquired in January a security firm called Impermium, to boost its expertise in countering spam and abuse.
The Internet giant said on a research site that much of its work on language, speech, translation, and visual processing relies on machine learning and artificial intelligence. “In all of those tasks and many others, we gather large volumes of direct or indirect evidence of relationships of interest, and we apply learning algorithms to generalize from that evidence to new cases of interest,” it said.
In May, Google launched a Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab, hosted by NASA’s Ames Research Center. The Universities Space Research Association was to invite researchers around the world to share time on the quantum computer from D-Wave Systems, to study how quantum computing can advance machine learning.
Intel Goes AI
Intel has written a check for the Spanish artificial intelligence technology startup Indisys.
The outfit focuses on natural language recognition and the deal is worth $26 million. It follows Intel’s recent acquisition of Omek, an Israeli startup with specialties in gesture-based interfaces. Indisys employees have joined Intel already. Apparently the deal was signed on May 31 and the deal has been completed.
Intel would not confirm how they are using the tech: “Indisys has a deep background in computational linguistics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and machine learning. We are not disclosing any details about how Intel might use the Indisys technologies at this time.”