Google Opens Machine-Learning Center in Zurich

Google is opening a dedicated machine-learning research center in Europe.

The new hub, based at the company's Zurich office, allows analysts to focus on machine learning, natural-language processing and understanding, and machine perception. Google products like Translate, Photo Search, and Smart Reply for Inbox are already powered by machine intelligence. But the team in Zurich will be researching ways to improve ML infrastructure and working with linguists to advance natural language understanding across the world.

"One of the things that enables these advances is the extensive collaboration between the Google researchers in our offices across the world, all contributing their unique knowledge and disseminating ideas in state-of-the-art ML technologies and techniques in order to develop useful tools and products," Emmanuel Mogenet, head of Google Research, Europe, wrote in a blog post.

Home to the largest Google engineering lab outside the US, the Swiss station is responsible for developing the engines that power Knowledge Graph and the Google assistant in Allo.

"We look forward to collaborating with all the excellent Computer Science research that is coming from the region, and hope to contribute towards the wider academic community," Mogenet said.

Earlier this month, Google's latest machine-learning experiment, Magenta, dropped its first single: a 90-second song played on piano. The project runs on top of the open-source AI engine TensorFlow, opened to the public in November.

This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.