What you need to know
- Microsoft recently announced the launch of a new AI hub in London.
- The facility will "will drive pioneering work to advance state-of-the-art language models and their supporting infrastructure, and to create world-class tooling for foundation models."
- Jordan Hoffmann, an AI scientist and engineer, will be joining Microsoft's AI team to lead operations at the new AI hub.
Over the past few years, we've seen Microsoft shift its focus to generative AI and its advances, especially after making a multi-billion investment into the technology, further extending its relationship with OpenAI.
The Redmond giant has integrated the technology across most of its products and services and even launched Microsoft AI to help advance consumer AI products and research, including Copilot. It recently ranked as the world's most valuable company ahead of Apple, with market analysts attributing this success to its early lead and investment in AI. And now, the company is doubling down on these efforts with a new AI hub domiciled in London.
Microsoft preps for a future with AI
This news comes after an internal memo from Microsoft leaked, indicating that the company was undergoing a reorg and transitioning most of its staff under the Teams Chat app umbrella to work on Copilot AI-themed projects. Strangely enough, this is amid pressure from the EU Commission that ultimately forced it to unbundle Microsoft Teams from its Office 365 package globally.
According to Microsoft:
"Microsoft AI London will drive pioneering work to advance state-of-the-art language models and their supporting infrastructure, and to create world-class tooling for foundation models, collaborating closely with our AI teams across Microsoft and with our partners, including OpenAI."
The new launch lines up perfectly with Microsoft's recent £2.5 billion investment to upskill the UK workforce for the new AI era alongside the infrastructure to facilitate the AI economy. Microsoft already has measures in place to ship "20,000 of the most advanced GPUs" to the UK by 2026.
AI scientist and engineer Jordan Hoffmann will run the point at the new AI hub in London Paddington and will work alongside Microsoft's AI team. The company intends to tap into the vast AI talent and expertise in the UK while simultaneously hiring AI scientists and engineers to further advances in the AI hub. Microsoft will post job openings and will consequently make new hires to join the AI team at the new hub.
