When Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella visited New Zealand three years ago, it was an event on the tech calendar. Friday's Translator announcement made his latest visit a cultural milestone. More than 1000 industry leaders and media filled the room at Auckland's Eden Park where Satya announced the addition of te reo Māori to Microsoft Translator, alongside the 60 languages already supported by the free application. The move will enable anyone around the world to translate text to and from te reo Māori. At a time when just 3 per cent of Kiwis speak te reo Māori, yet Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is calling for 1 million additional speakers by 2040, it's crucial that people have the tools to engage with each other in te reo Māori in their everyday lives.

NIWA and Microsoft Corp. are teaming up to make artificial intelligence handwriting recognition more accurate and efficient in a project that will support climate research. The project aims to develop better training sets for handwriting recognition technology that will "read" old weather logs. The first step is to use weather information recorded during a week in July 1939 when it snowed all over New Zealand, including at Cape Reinga. NIWA climate scientist Dr. Andrew Lorrey says the project has the potential to revolutionise how historic data can be used. Microsoft has awarded NIWA an AI for Earth grant for the artificial intelligence project, which will support advances in automating handwriting recognition.