Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella spruiks power of machine learning, smart bots and mixed reality at Sydney developers conference

MICROSOFT CEO Satya Nadella told a Sydney audience that AI, smart bots and mixed reality are allowing the company to build the world’s first supercomputer.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaking at the Sydney developers conference Wednesday morning.

MICROSOFT CEO Satya Nadella has spruiked the power of machine learning, cognitive APIs (application programming interface) and the advent of mixed reality in ushering in the future game-changing developments in technology.

Speaking at the Microsoft Australia Developer Conference in Sydney on Wednesday morning, he outlined Microsoft’s vision for creating the platforms to allow Australian companies to build our future digital tools.

In his first trip to Australia since becoming the CEO, Mr Nadella told the audience he cherished the opportunity to speak to developers because the work of his company is “really about what others do” with its technology.

“How do they go on to build on top of our platforms, how do they go on to build to achieve their dreams,” he said. “At Microsoft, we aim to empower every Australian citizen and organisation to achieve more.”

When it comes to Microsoft’s “world view” on technology he said the company takes a cloud first, mobile first approach.

“We have a pretty distinctive point of view when we say mobile first, it’s not about the mobility of any single device, it’s about the mobility of the human experience across all the computing in our lives,” he said. “That’s what the cloud enables.”

Aside from building a highly trusted hyper-scale cloud that operates all over the world, Microsoft has made no secret about its desire to unleash the power of machine learning and artificially intelligent bots.

MACHINE LEARNING AND INTELLIGENT BOTS

“You always want to think about what’s going to define the application you build. When you look back five years from now at the applications built today what’s going to be that defining characteristic,” he said to the large Sydney audience.

“It’s going to be data, or more importantly it’s going to be about reasoning over large amounts of data and to be able to create intelligence.”

That is the intention behind Microsoft’s Cortana intelligence suite — a set of tools and programs designed to allow users to turn big data and predictive analytics into better performance.

“Things like machine learning and artificial intelligence are not just for consumer internet companies,” he said.

Mr Nadella pointed to Australian organisations that have begun embracing such platforms including the Australian Department of Human Services to create a more functional service.

He also pointed to “empowering” potential of a deal signed with Cricket Australia on Tuesday to use Microsoft’s new team and player performance platform in a bid to turn data analytics into better on-field results. Although he admitted “it’s probably not the best day to talk about cricket in Australia,” alluding to our drubbing this week at the hands of South Africa.

@satyanadella: empowering to see cricket Australia start using machine learning to improve performance. pic.twitter.com/dZk1pwtVDE

— Nick Whigham (@NWWhigham) November 15, 2016

During his keynote address the Microsoft CEO also made mention of the public preview of a new Azure Bot services which enables developers to build, deploy and manage bots on the Azure cloud. It is the latest step in Microsoft’s stated quest to “democratise AI”.

“We are building not just Azure to have rich compute capability, but we are, in fact, building the world’s first AI supercomputer,” he said.

By using enhanced forms of computer vision, speech recognition and natural language processing Microsoft aims to make it “possible for developers to create intelligence and get beyond even any limitations of Moore’s Law.”

Satya Nadella delivers address to Sydney audience.

MIXED REALITY

Microsoft’s augmented reality headset dubbed HoloLens will be available in Australia this month and Mr Nadella told the audience that the advent of mixed reality is one of the most exciting things currently happening in computing.

“One of the most exciting things that’s happening right in front of our eyes is the creation of a new medium that we described as mixed reality,” he said.

Mr Nadella described mixed reality as an environment “where you can take 3D objects, you can scan essentially anything in the physical world, convert it into a 3D object, a digital object, enhance it, give it a physics engine, in other words give it motion.

“You can then put that digital artefact with motion back into the physical world and have it world lock. That means it can, in fact, recognise the real world. That spectrum of starting from the real world and enhancing the real world is what we describe as mixed reality,” he said.

For example Australia Saab Defence, which is a subsidiary of Saab, has in fact taken HoloLens and built out an application to enable special forces to create and visualise operational plans in very hazardous situations.

Microsoft has a tagline it likes to throw around regarding its HoloLens technology: “When you change the way you see the world, you change the world you see.”

That tagline “really speaks to, I think, the opportunity in front of us,” Mr Nadella said. “And what developers are able to do with these new computers, these new platforms, to have real impact is what, to us, gives us true meaning to the work that we do.”

Company image of Microsoft’s HoloLens augmented reality glasses.