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Describing him as an ‘exceptional’ AI scientist and engineer, Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman said Hoffman is the first of many hires to work on the ‘most interesting and challenging AI questions of our time’.
Microsoft is opening a new AI hub in London that is to be led by former Inflection and DeepMind scientist Jordan Hoffman.
Mustafa Suleyman, the Google DeepMind co-founder who was recently hired by Microsoft to head its overall AI business, wrote in a blog yesterday (7 April) that the new London AI hub will drive advancements in language models, create tools for foundation models and collaborate with AI teams across Microsoft and its partners – including OpenAI.
“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,” Suleyman wrote, describing Hoffman as an “exceptional” AI scientist and engineer.
“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.”
Before joining Microsoft, Hoffman worked at Inflection, the AI start-up founded in 2022 that is taking on the likes of OpenAI and Google. He was also Suleyman’s colleague at DeepMind based in London.
I’m excited to announce that today I’m joining @Microsoft as CEO of Microsoft AI. I’ll be leading all consumer AI products and research, including Copilot, Bing and Edge. My friend and longtime collaborator Karén Simonyan will be Chief Scientist, and several of our amazing…
— Mustafa Suleyman (@mustafasuleyman) March 19, 2024
Last November, Microsoft made its largest-ever investment in the UK with a commitment of £2.5bn over the next three years to expand its AI data centre footprint in the country and foster research in the technology.
The investment is expected see Microsoft bring more than 20,000 of its most advanced graphics processing units to the UK by 2026, which will fuel the country’s progress in the development of machine learning and AI models.
In November of last year, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak hosted the world’s first major AI Safety Summit in the UK to promote greater international collaboration on the emerging technology. This led to the Bletchley Declaration, an agreement between the world’s major powers to work together in regulating AI.
Now, Suleyman says the latest AI hub in London is further great news for the country.
“As a British citizen, born and raised in London, I’m proud to have co-founded and built a cutting-edge AI business here,” he said. “The Microsoft AI London hub adds to Microsoft’s existing presence in the UK, including the Microsoft Research Cambridge lab, home to some of the foremost researchers in the areas of AI, cloud and productivity.”
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