Microsoft announces new London AI research hub

Microsoft AI is opening a new AI hub in Central London. The firm claims that the new Paddington based centre, dubbed Microsoft AI London will ‘drive pioneering work to advance state-of-the-art language models and their supporting infrastructure, and to create world-class tooling for foundation models’, collaborating closely with AI teams across Microsoft and with its partners, including OpenAI. 

The new AI hub will be led by Jordan Hoffmann, an AI scientist and engineer. Prior to joining Microsoft AI, Hoffmann worked at Inflection and DeepMind, based in London. Hoffmann will be joined by a group of Microsoft AI team members based in the firm’s London Paddington office.

“There is an enormous pool of AI talent and expertise in the UK, and Microsoft AI plans to make a significant, long-term investment in the region as we begin hiring the best AI scientists and engineers into this new AI hub,” said Mustafa Suleyman, EVP and CEO of Microsoft AI in an announcement. “In the coming weeks and months, we will be posting job openings and actively hiring exceptional individuals who want to work on the most interesting and challenging AI questions of our time. We’re looking for new team members who are driven by impact at scale, and who are passionate innovators eager to contribute to a team culture where continuous learning is the norm.  

“This is great news for Microsoft AI and for the U.K.  As a British citizen, born and raised in London, I’m proud to have co-founded and built a cutting-edge AI business here. I’m deeply aware of the extraordinary talent pool and AI ecosystem in the U.K., and I’m excited to make this commitment to the U.K. on behalf of Microsoft AI. I know – through my close work with thought leaders in the U.K. government, business community and academia – that the country is committed to advancing AI responsibly and with a safety-first commitment to drive investment, innovation and economic growth. Our decision to open this hub in the U.K. reflects this ambition.”  

The Microsoft AI London hub adds to Microsoft’s existing presence in the UK, including the Microsoft Research Cambridge lab, already home to researchers in the areas of AI and cloud. At the same time, it builds off Microsoft’s recently announced £2.5 billion investment to upskill the UK workforce for the AI era and to build the infrastructure to power the AI economy, including a commitment to bring 20,000 of the most advanced graphics processing units to the country by 2026.