Tutorial: Deep Learning with R on Azure with Keras and CNTK

Microsoft's Cognitive Toolkit (better known as CNTK) is a commercial-grade and open-source framework for deep learning tasks. At present CNTK does not have a native R interface but can be accessed through Keras, a high-level API which wraps various deep learning backends including CNTK, TensorFlow, and Theano, for the convenience of modularizing deep neural network construction. The latest version of CNTK (2.1) supports Keras. The RStudio team has developed an R interface for Keras making it possible to run different deep learning backends, including CNTK, from within an R session. This tutorial illustrates how to simply and quickly spin up a Ubuntu-based Azure Data Science Virtual Machine (DSVM) and to configure a Keras and CNTK environment.