Google Opens European Machine Learning Centre

Google has announced it will open a Machine Learning research group in Zurich, Switzerland, to advance products and conduct AI research in the region.

Google said that the group will research ways in which to improve Google’s machine learning infrastructure – an infrastructure that powers the search giant’s search, translate, and smart Gmail services.

Wider efforts

“Google Research, Europe, will foster an environment where software engineers and researchers specialising in ML will have the opportunity to develop products and conduct research right here in Europe, as part of the wider efforts at Google,” said Google in a blog post.

The city of Zurich is already home to one of Google’s largest engineering offices outside of the US, and developed the engine that powers Google’s Knowledge Graph. The new centre will focus on machine intelligence, natural language processing, and machine perception.

“Researchers in the Zurich office will be uniquely able to work closely with team linguists, advancing Natural Language Understanding in collaboration with Google Research groups across the world, all while enjoying Mountain Views of a different kind,” said Google.

Interestingly, Switzerland is not a member of the EU and Swiss authorities are not yet legally bound by the same Safe Harbour or Privacy Shield regulations that the rest of the EU adheres to. In light of Google’s British Deep Mind NHS data sharing agreement, TechWeekEurope wonders if Google will be able to take advantage of laxer data privacy rules in the country for its own research purposes.

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