Microsoft To Make Your PC Smarter With New “Windows ML” AI Platform

Microsoft has announced a new platform called Windows ML that will allow developers to build powerful apps for Windows 10. The platform will arrive with the release of the next major Windows 10 update.

Microsoft is already using their AI know-how to improve experiences in products including Office 365, Bing, Cortana, Photos app, Windows Hello, etc.

Using Windows ML, the developers will be able to take advantage of many existing pre-trained machine learning models while building desktop and UWP apps for Windows 10. And also for HoloLens headset, IoT devices, etc., that are powered by Windows.

The technology will enable real-time processing of large amounts of data (such as images and videos) locally using the devices’ hardware horsepower. It offers support for the standard machine learning format called “ONNX.”

Windows ML will go hand in hand with Microsoft’s Cloud AI platform, giving the developers a choice of processing AI workloads either on the device or in the cloud, depending on the situation. For instance, the processing can happen on the device if it’s not connected to the internet.

Microsoft has partnered with various companies including Intel, Nvidia, Qualcomm, etc., to bring hardware support (for example, Intel Modivious) for Windows ML. Interested developers can get the first taste of Windows ML in Visual Studio Preview 15.7. At this year’s Build conference, the company is expected to reveal more about their AI developments.