Microsoft bets on faster chips, AI services, to win cloud wars

Microsoft has spent the past few years coming up with ways to use artificial intelligence internally. Now it will let customers take advantage of some of these tools while aiming to lure business from Amazon and Google. The company will let customers use a chip system it built to process AI queries cheaper and faster, called Project Brainwave. The first Brainwave service will speed up image recognition so it's almost instantaneous, said Doug Burger, a distinguished engineer in Microsoft Research, who works on the company's chip development strategy for the cloud. Microsoft, starting next year, also will sell an AI-sensor device based on the technology it its motion-controlled Kinect gaming sensor.