Google is opening a dedicated Machine Learning (ML) research group in Europe, based in the company’s Zurich office in Switzerland. Google Research, Europe, will foster an environment where software engineers and researchers specializing in ML will have the opportunity to develop products and conduct research, says Emmanuel Mogenet, head of Google Research, Europe.

Zurich is already the home of Google’s largest engineering office outside the US, and is responsible for developing the engine that powers Knowledge Graph, as well as the conversation engine that powers the Google Assistant in Allo. Google’s ongoing research in Machine Intelligence is what powers many of the products being in Translate to Photo Search to Smart Reply for Inbox.

In addition to continued collaboration with Google’s various research teams, Google Research, Europe will be focused on three key areas – Machine Intelligence, Natural Language Processing and Understanding, and Machine Perception.

The Google Zurich team will research ways in which to improve ML infrastructure, broadly facilitating research for the community, and enabling it to be put to practical use, says the company. Researchers will be working with team linguists, advancing Natural Language Understanding in collaboration with Google Research groups across the world.

[Image courtesy: Google]