Dive Brief:
- On Monday, Microsoft released its homegrown Computational Network Toolkit (CNTK) on GitHub, allowing an extended network of developers to work with the open-source technology.
- Microsoft researchers use CNTK to accelerate advancements in artificial intelligence, helping them improve how well computers understand speech. CNTK has better communication capabilities and can recognize speech and images better than other available deep learning toolkits, Microsoft said.
- Microsoft uses CNTK to help power its Cortana digital assistant and Skype Translate applications, according to a Wired report.
- Researchers run machine learning algorithms using deep neural networks, inspired by the biology of the human brain, to advance artificial intelligence, according to Microsoft.
Dive Insight:
"Microsoft" and "open source" are not two phrases you would expect to go together, but this move is designed to help promote advancements in artificial intelligence and deep learning research. With more powerful and intelligent technology, companies can assist in human work and potentially increase productivity, according to Microsoft International president Jean-Philippe Courtois.
Earlier this month, Yahoo released 110 billion records – 13.5TB of data – that computer scientists can use to guide and test machine learning systems. The data release will help promote independent research in large-scale machine learning, potentially providing answers to problems that could, in turn, prove useful to companies like Yahoo, said a research director at Yahoo.
Releases similar to those of Microsoft and Yahoo can further the field of artificial intelligence, promoting research collaboration to make software faster than ever before.
Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has recently said that artificial intelligence could help solve the world’s “hard problems.” He called companies to start working together to establish standardized approaches in artificial intelligence, sharing breakthroughs with the academic community.
