The world’s largest PC software company Microsoft has officially announced that according to an agreement, it is soon going to acquire an artificial intelligence (AI) startup called Bonsai.
Founded in 2014, the AI company Bonsai is headquartered in San Fransisco and the primary motive of Microsoft behind this acquisition is to enhance and bolster its AI and machine learning potential. Microsoft stated that Bonsai has developed technology that will let experts with AI experience work with autonomous systems.
“To realize this vision of making AI more accessible and valuable for all, we have to remove the barriers to development, empowering every developer, regardless of machine learning expertise, to be an AI developer,” said Gurdeep Pall, Microsoft Corporate VP. “Bonsai has made tremendous progress here and Microsoft remains committed to furthering this work,” he added.
The AI company Bonsai was founded by former Microsoft engineers Mark Hammond and Keen Browne. The startup uses machine learning to abstract the low-level mechanics of machine learning and further allows the experts to specify and train systems to take forward various tasks. It claims to have a team that “brings deep experience in machine learning and developer tools from the likes of Microsoft, Uber, Google and Apple.”
Microsoft is expected to combine Bonsai’s platform with Azure Machine Learning running on Azure with GPUs and Brainwave. By acquiring Bonsai, Microsoft will gain a product that has picked up some business use to help with the push. Prior to this, Microsoft had also acquired GitHub, four gaming companies, an educational video-discussion vendor Redmond, SwiftKey and Maluuba. It is now all set to bring in yet another AI startup and this step is a major one to take it forward and grow extensively.