Two Princeton University computer science professors will lead a new Google AI lab opening in January in the town of Princeton. The lab is expected to expand New Jersey's burgeoning innovation ecosystem by building a collaborative effort to advance research in artificial intelligence. The lab, at 1 Palmer Square, will start with a small number of faculty members, graduate and undergraduate student researchers, recent graduates and software engineers. The lab builds on several years of close collaboration between Google and professors Elad Hazan and Yoram Singer, who will split their time working for Google and Princeton. The work in the lab will focus on a discipline within artificial intelligence known as machine learning, in which computers learn from existing information and develop the ability to draw conclusions and make decisions in new situations that were not in the original data.

"The different achievements in this country, including in science, art and the academic field make it an ideal place for the creation of a centre of theoretical research in artificial intelligence," Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said in a statement. The announcement came as Macron welcomed 140 multinational business leaders to Versailles in Paris on Monday night, ahead of the opening of the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday. Google said it will be extend it's headquarters in the capital to accommodate the centre -- the third to open worldwide, after California and Switzerland. The number of staff in Paris is set to increase from 700 to 1,000. Facebook earlier announced its intention to double the number of researchers at its own AI centre, opened in Paris in 2015, from 30 to 60.