NationalReal Estate NewsSUPPLIER NEWS

Microsoft Ignite 2017: Tech giant announces focusing on AI and quantum computing

The 2017 edition of Ignite, Microsoftโ€™s conference for IT professionals and developers, kicked off this week in Orlando, Florida with a raft of product announcements set to be unveiled.

The tech giant, led by CEO Satya Nadella, revealed details about its efforts to use artificial intelligence (AI), data and cloud tech to help customers create the future of business and innovate for the future.

In his opening address, Nadella asked the question โ€œHow are we going to empower people?โ€. He went on to say that every piece of technology developed should โ€œembellish the capability of human beings.โ€ This brought him to what he says is Microsoftโ€™s main mission: empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

Nadella said during his Ignite keynote that the nature of work is “no longer about routine tasks – it’s about unlocking the creativity inside of your organisation” and “going beyond individual productivity to dynamic teams”.

The new announcements centred around Microsoftโ€™s commercial businesses, including Office 365, Windows 10, Microsoft Azure, Dynamics 365 and Microsoft AI.

Microsoft has plans to use its own AI tech to handle online customer service and support inquiries. This is perhaps not unlikeย Crystalย and other innovations that are coming onto the scene that use AI to get the best reach using digital marketing.

Nadella also shed some light on how quantum computers could help solve some of the planetโ€™s biggest challenges.

Quantum computing aims to provide far greater computing power than currently available by leveraging principles of quantum physics. While Microsoft is working to develop the hardware necessary for a quantum computer, the company is also working on the software side and is now looking to engage developers.

Microsoft said that it’s created a new programming language for use with quantum computing, and plans to make related debugging and simulation tools available to developers by the end of 2017. The aim, Nadella said, is for quantum computing to “tackle some of the biggest challenges that we still face as a world”.

Show More

Azal Khan

Azal Khan was a in-house features writer for Elite Agent Magazine.