– Microsoft announced new London hub for consumer AI division
– Fronted by AI scientist and engineer Jordan Hoffmann, previously from Inflection AI
– Microsoft investing £2.5 billion in the U.K. over the next three years, expanding datacentre footprint and training people for the AI economy
Microsoft has announced the launch of a new London hub for its consumer AI division, led by AI scientist and engineer Jordan Hoffmann. Hoffmann was recently hired from high-profile AI startup Inflection AI, which Microsoft invested in last year. The news comes after Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella unveiled a new consumer AI division headed up by founders of Inflection AI, including Mustafa Suleyman who co-founded Deepmind, a company Google acquired in 2014.
Suleyman praised Hoffmann as an exceptional AI scientist and engineer, appointing him to lead the new London unit. Microsoft plans to launch new job postings to recruit AI talent to join Hoffmann at its Paddington office, focusing on developing new language models and infrastructure. This initiative is part of Microsoft’s broader plan to invest £2.5 billion in the U.K. over the next three years, expanding its datacenter footprint and training over one million people for the AI economy.
The U.K. is a key player in AI research and development, following the U.S. and China. With DeepMind also based in London, a talent competition between Microsoft and Google may be on the horizon. Google DeepMind co-founder and CEO Demis Hassabis was recently knighted for his contributions to artificial intelligence. Microsoft declined to provide further details on the scale of its U.K. AI hub when reached out for comment by TechCrunch.