The London office of a tech giant has set up a division for artificial intelligence
Microsoft will open a new artificial-intelligence (AI) hub for London, one year after the company’s former president stated that his confidence to invest in the UK was “severely shook”.
The division will run by Mustafa Suleyman , Microsoft’s newly appointed AI tsar and Google DeepMind cofounder .
Microsoft AI is planning to invest a large amount of money in the UK.
His comments come nearly a year after Brad Smith , Microsoft’s President, lashed out against Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority over its threat of blocking its takeover Activision.
Mr Smith stated at the time that the decision was “bad” for Britain and “the confidence of the people in technology in the UK had been severely shaken”.
He said to the BBC: “There is a clear message – the European Union offers a better place to start a company than the United Kingdom.”
After Microsoft restructured the deal, the CMA gave it the green light.
Microsoft’s AI investment is the UK includes a new data centre being built in West London, and 20,000 processors that are high-powered to be installed in the UK before 2026.
Microsoft AI has announced that Mr Suleyman who co-founded UK machine learning business DeepMind, before it was purchased by Google in 2014 said, “I am excited to make this promise to the UK as a representative of Microsoft AI.”
I know, through my work with leaders in the UK business community, government and academia that the country is dedicated to advancing AI responsibly.
In 2022, Mr Suleyman founded his own AI company called Inflection. He was hired by Microsoft in March to head its AI efforts.
Microsoft’s UK lab will now be headed by Jordan Hoffmann. He is another former DeepMind employee, who has joined Mr Suleyman at Inflection. He said that the new lab will “collaborate” closely with OpenAI – the developer of ChatGPT – in which Microsoft has invested millions of dollars.
The technology industry has been surprised by Mr Suleyman’s decision to join Microsoft. Before his abrupt departure, his new AI business raised more than $1bn of venture capital.
Microsoft paid $30m in exchange for Inflection’s agreement not to sue the company over the poaching. Microsoft also licensed the AI tools of the startup.