Microsoft Unveils New Cloud Services for AI and Industrial Sensors

Microsoft Unveils New Cloud Services for AI and Industrial Sensors
Satya Nadella

Microsoft is showing off new cloud services for AI and industrial sensors as well as database software tools designed to give Oracle a headache, according to Bloomberg.

One artificial intelligence service uses the company’s ability to automatically translate languages to add subtitles to PowerPoint presentations, while another lets customers index video to identify a particular speaker by sight or tag when a word or phrase is uttered, company executives said during a briefing ahead of its Build developer conference in Seattle. The indexer can be used both to find specific things in hours of footage and to better match ads to clips. Microsoft's collection of AI services for customers now numbers 29.

In a keynote featuring CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft has focused on Azure cloud services meant for the Internet of Things, in which multiple sensors and smaller computing devices track data that can be analyzed by Microsoft’s cloud and AI tools. Where the company's previous focus has been on transferring that data back to its datacenters to analyze, Azure IoT Edge will allow that computing to take place on-site in local computing devices to speed things up. The company is focusing initially on industrial applications, and Nadella demonstrated how this approach allows faster responses to things like malfunctioning equipment.

He also showcased a future scenario called AI for Workplace Safety, in which a construction site can tag pieces of equipment with properties like how it should be placed and used, as well as who can use it. Using AI software that can recognize what's going on from things like video and sensors, the system can trigger alerts if the machine isn't operated correctly or if there's a spill.

Nadella has made both AI and internet-based computing key areas of investment for Microsoft as it looks for new areas of growth. In both spaces, the company is squaring up to rivals like Amazon or Alphabet. At the same time, it’s trying to steal business from older competitors such as Oracle, even as the database giant makes its own foray into the cloud.

Microsoft is providing an early look at new tools intended to help customers switch from Oracle’s database to Microsoft’s rival product in the cloud, Azure SQL Database as a Service. The tools lets users of Microsoft's standard SQL product switch to the cloud version.