Microsoft opens AI Hub in London to 'advance state-of-the-art language models'

A glowing Microsoft logo

Last month, Microsoft announced a new Microsoft AI division led by Mustafa Suleyman, a DeepMind and Inflection co-founder. Now, the company is expanding its AI efforts with a new AI Hub in London to "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 our AI teams across Microsoft and with our partners, including OpenAI."

Microsoft AI London, situated in the London Paddington office, will be led by Jordan Hoffman, another AI pioneer from Inflection and Deepmind. Microsoft says the UK has "an enormous pool of AI talent," and the company plans long-term investments in the area.

The new hub will soon post job openings to bring more AI scientists and engineers to help Microsoft bolster its position in the rapidly evolving AI market. The announcement blog post claims Microsoft is looking for "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."

Mustafa Suleyman, the head of Microsoft AI, commented on the following about the launch of Microsoft AI London:

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 will boost the company's UK presence significantly and build on its recently announced £2.5 billion investment in the country's workforce. Microsoft also plans to play a big role in the development of the UK's AI economy, including bringing 20,000 of the most advanced GPUs by 2026.