In a bid to improve customer experience in visual systems with regards to artificial intelligence (AI), e-commerce giant Amazon announced plans to set up a visually-focused AI research hub in Tübingen, Germany.
The company also stated that the research conducted at the hub is projected to benefit users of Amazon Web Services and Alexa, its voice-driven AI assistant tech.
The Tübingen-based centre, located near the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems' campus will be staffed with more than 100 machine learning engineers, to be created over the next five years, the company stated, reports TechCrunch.
For establishing the Tübingen hub, the company is reportedly collaborating with the Max Planck Society on a research collaboration that kicked off in December 2016 and is also focused on AI, as well as on bolstering a local startup ecosystem.
Tentatively titled 'Cyber Valley', the research center is expected to focus on Robotics, machine learning and machine vision. As with other research partners, Amazon will be contributing EUR 1.25 million to set up research groups in the Stuttgart and Tübingen regions, the Society said.
"We appreciate Amazon's commitment in the Cyber Valley and to research on artificial intelligence. We gain another strong cooperation partner who will further increase the international significance of research in the area of machine learning and computer vision in the Stuttgart and Tübingen region," Max Planck President Martin Stratmann said in a statement.
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Investing in business critical research and the next generation of AI researchers is also clearly on the slate here for Amazon. As part of the collaboration, it says it will be providing the Society with research awards worth EUR 420,000 per year.
The site is Amazon's fourth Research Center in Germany - after Berlin, Dresden and Aachen. While the Tübingen hub is Amazon's first German center focused on visual AI research, it is merely an extension of Amazon's R&D efforts in this segment.