- Microsoft’s new AI unit, Inflection AI, has seen several members of the Inflection team join, including former PhD student Hoffmann.
- Microsoft has said it will invest £2.5bn ($3.15bn) in the UK over the next three years, which includes expanding the reach of its data centres and training “more than a million people” for the AI economy.
- The UK, home to Google’s DeepMind, is reportedly investing heavily in AI R&D, potentially leading to a significant talent tug-of-war in the AI dominance battle.
Microsoft has announced a new London hub for its consumer AI division, led by Jordan Hoffmann, an AI scientist and engineer from high-profile startup Inflection AI. This comes three weeks after Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella unveiled a new division led by founders of Inflection AI, including Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind, acquired by Google in 2014.
Departmental members
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has announced the hiring of several members of the Inflection team for its newly formed AI division, including former PhD student Hoffman. Hoffman joined DeepMind as a research scientist in 2020 before joining Inflection AI in 2022.DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman founded the startup in 2022 and began poaching people from DeepMind and Meta. Hoffman, who was praised by Suleiman as a “brilliant AI scientist and engineer,” will head up the new division in London. Suleiman himself will report directly to Nadella in the US.
In order to attract additional AI talent to work with Hoffmann in Microsoft’s Paddington office, where they will create new language models and related infrastructure and tooling, Suleyman announced that they would be posting new job openings in the “coming weeks and months.”
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Focusing on building a new London hub
Another recent announcement by Microsoft, in partnership with the UK government, indicated a £2.5 billion investment in the UK over the next three years, with plans to expand data centre coverage and train “more than a million people” for the AI economy.
The UK, a top-tier global destination for AI R&D investment, is expected to witness a significant talent tug-of-war between the US and China, as Google’s DeepMind is also based in the UK. Additionally, Google DeepMind co-founder and CEO Demis Hassabis was recently awarded a knighthood for “services to artificial intelligence.”
Microsoft declined to provide any further information on the scale of its U.K. AI hub, as TechCrunch requested.
