softbank-leads-93-million-investment-ai-startup-petuum

NEW YORK – SoftBank Group Corp. is leading a $93 million (about ¥10.4 billion) investment in a startup that simplifies for companies the use of machine learning or deep learning applications at scale. The investment from a SoftBank subsidiary will be used to expand Petuum's team and further develop its operating system for specific industries, including manufacturing and health care, the company said Tuesday in a statement. "This technology should be standardized, accessible, and mass-producible, so that all can benefit from artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning," said Petuum founder and Chief Executive Officer Eric Xing. Its founders include Xing, an artificial intelligence professor and associate head of Carnegie Mellon University's Machine Learning department, as well as Qirong Ho, an adjunct assistant professor at the Singapore Management University School of Information Systems and Ning Li, a former advanced technology manager at Seagate Technology.