{"id":339627,"date":"2017-04-29T07:03:02","date_gmt":"2017-04-28T23:03:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1483192"},"modified":"2017-04-29T07:03:02","modified_gmt":"2017-04-28T23:03:02","slug":"tencent-to-open-ai-research-center-in-seattle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/tencent-to-open-ai-research-center-in-seattle\/","title":{"rendered":"Tencent to open AI research center in Seattle"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent will be opening a new AI research center in Seattle, according to The Information.<\/a> The company has long had a core office in Palo Alto, but this will be its first major machine intelligence R&D effort in the country. Earlier this week Tencent announced that it would open its first data center in Silicon Valley.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Yu Dong, formally of Microsoft Research, is said to be leading the U.S. effort. He recently joined Tencent and has traditionally focused on the nexus of speech recognition and deep learning. Tencent\u00a0has a clear interest in developing a personal assistant that could tie its products together and increase\u00a0its competitiveness\u00a0in the market.<\/p>\n

Tencent\u2019s investment in machine learning will enable it to deploy the technology across the company. Rather than build one-off services, the smartest tech companies are designing models that can be integrated into older products and services while serving as the basis\u00a0for new ones.<\/p>\n

Baidu has been pouring resources into its own AI research lab in Silicon Valley, though it has suffered two key setbacks in recent weeks. Andrew Ng, Baidu\u2019s chief scientist,\u00a0left the company<\/a>\u00a0back in March. And fittingly,\u00a0Tencent itself nabbed\u00a0Tong Zhang<\/a> who led Baidu\u2019s Big Data Lab.\u00a0Despite the news,\u00a0Baidu plans to\u00a0open a second AI research center<\/a> in the Valley.<\/p>\n

Baidu,\u00a0Tencent, Alibaba, Didi Chuxing\u00a0and other Chinese tech companies have struggled to convince U.S. AI researchers to move their research overseas. This has led\u00a0to stiff competition for AI talent in the U.S. as major international tech companies compete for engineers alongside Google, Microsoft and Facebook on their home turf.<\/p>\n

Featured Image: VCG\/VCG\/Getty Images<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent will be opening a new AI research center in Seattle, according to The Information. The company has long had a core office in Palo Alto, but this will be its first major machine intelligence R&D effort in the country. Earlier this week Tencent announced that it would open its first data center in Silicon Valley. Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

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