AI Dev Watch 12/12/17: Microsoft Investing $50 Million in AI, Natural Language Platform Launch, Cray and the Big Data Center, More -- ADTmag

AI Dev Watch 12/12/17: Microsoft Investing $50 Million in AI, Natural Language Platform Launch, Cray and the Big Data Center, More

By Becky Nagel
December 12, 2017

Here are some of the latest artificial intelligence-related development news stories that you might want to catch up on.

On a side note, you missed ADTMag.com's live editorial Webcast "AI Opportunities for Developers" last week, you can sign up to watch it on-demand here (and let us know what other AI-related topics you want us to cover in future editorial Webcasts by e-mailing [email protected] with the subject line "AI Webcasts").

In conjunction with the two year Paris climate accords, Microsoft has announced it will be investing $50 million over the next five in its AI for Earth initiative (announced earlier this year), stating "At Microsoft, we believe artificial intelligence is a game changer. Our approach as a company is focused on democratizing AI so its features and capabilities can be put to use by individuals and organizations around the world to improve real-world outcomes." The money will be distributed to universities, non-profits and others in the form of grants and gifts.
Lexalytics this week announced the launch of its new artificial intelligence platform designed to for natural language processing applications, AI Assembler. the company bills the release as a"faster, easier machine learning" toolkit that can "build targeted solutions to specific natural language problems."
Supercomputer manufacturer Cray Inc. last week announced that it has joined the government's Big Data Center (BDC) as part of a collaboration to "advance the adoption of AI, deep learning and data-intensive computing." The BDC is the Department of Energy's National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center's partnership with Intel and several universities created in August 2017. "We are really excited to have Cray join the Big Data Center," commented a representative. "Cray's deep expertise in systems, software, and scaling is critical in working towards the BDC mission of enabling capability applications for data-intensive science."

About the Author

Becky Nagel is the vice president of Web & Digital Strategy for 1105's Converge360 Group, where she oversees the front-end Web team and deals with all aspects of digital projects at the company, including launching and running the group's popular virtual summit and Coffee talk series . She an experienced tech journalist (20 years), and before her current position, was the editorial director of the group's sites. A few years ago she gave a talk at a leading technical publishers conference about how changes in Web browser technology would impact online advertising for publishers. Follow her on twitter @beckynagel.