14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is announcing today that the next version of Windows 10 (currently codenamed Redstone 4) would bring AI and machine learning capabilities for app developers, which technically enables them to offer more advanced functionality that was previously available in the software giant’s software exclusively.
The AI platform Windows developers will be based on pre-trained machine learning models, the company said today at the Windows Developer Day, and can be used on all Windows devices, including PCs, laptops, 2-in-1s, servers, datacenters, HoloLens, and even IoT devices.
Microsoft explains that its machine learning model already uses the latest-generation hardware, but it’s optimized for the “diverse silicon that runs Windows.” This means that Windows 10 apps implementing AI capabilities could run on pretty much any hardware on a Windows 10 system, though for best performance newer hardware is recommended.
AI-powered apps offering more advanced experiences
Using the AI platform should provide developers with low latency and real-time results, as the local processing capabilities of the system are employed. On the other hand, there’s also the flexibility side of the platform, which enables tasks to be performed both locally or in the cloud in cases when the connection is lost or due to cost, size, or policies.
And last but not least, Microsoft says today’s announcement opens the door to reduced operation costs.
“Together with Microsoft's Cloud AI platform, developers can build affordable, end-to-end AI solutions that combine training models in Azure with deployment to Windows devices for evaluation. Significant savings can be realized by reducing or eliminating costs associated with bandwidth due to ingestion of large data sets, such as camera footage or sensor telemetry. Complex workloads can be processed in real-time on the edge, with minimal sample data sent to the cloud for improved training on observations.”
Microsoft is also announcing that starting with Visual Studio Preview 15.7, it’s possible to automatically generate a model interface for UWP apps using an ONNX file, which is an industry format for machine learning that companies like Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon invested in. Older versions of Visual Studio will need to use MLGen, and Microsoft says this functionality will also be added to Visual Studio tools for AI at a later time.