Trusted Reviews is supported by its audience. If you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a commission. Learn more.

Google gifts machine learning tech to open source community

Google has announced it is open-sourcing the TensorFlow machine learning platform behind Photos and Translate.

In a blog post on Monday, the firm said it was taking the Android-like approach to AI in order to “accelerate research on machine learning.”

Academic researchers, engineers, hobbyists and more will be able to access the code, enabling the “machine learning community to exchange ideas more quickly.”

Google says the initiative, which makes TensorFlow available under the Apache 2 license, will result in making technology work better for everyone.

New Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote: “We’ve seen firsthand what TensorFlow can do, and we think it could make an even bigger impact outside Google.

“TensorFlow is faster, smarter, and more flexible than our old system, so it can be adapted much more easily to new products and research. It’s a highly scalable machine learning system—it can run on a single smartphone or across thousands of computers in datacenters.

“We use TensorFlow for everything from speech recognition in the Google app, to Smart Reply in Inbox, to search in Google Photos. It allows us to build and train neural nets up to five times faster than our first-generation system, so we can use it to improve our products much more quickly.”

See also What is Google DeepMind?

Pichai asserts that machine learning remains very much in its infancy, currently at sub-4-year-old levels.

However by open-sourcing TensorFlow, the Google boss says its good start will be aided by everyone working on it together.

Check out TensorFlow in the video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
oZikw5k_2FM

Why trust our journalism?

Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.

Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.

author icon

Editorial independence

Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.

author icon

Professional conduct

We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.

Trusted Reviews Logo

Sign up to our newsletter

Get the best of Trusted Reviews delivered right to your inbox.

This is a test error message with some extra words