Microsoft signed an agreement to acquire Bonsai to develop ‘brains’ for autonomous systems. Bonsai is a startup based in Berkley, California, and an M12 portfolio company which is on a mission to train autonomous system to accomplish tasks. The Berkley based startup uses machine teaching to achieve what is unthinkable to a normal person.

Combining the force of Bonsai’s platform and Microsoft Research an AI toolchain will be will be created for building any kind of autonomous system for control and calibration of tasks. Goes without saying that this toolchain will be powered by Azure machine learning on the Azure cloud with Brainwave. The model will be deployed and managed in Azure IoT which will enable Microsoft to operate and enhance brains for autonomous systems.

Microsoft claims that autonomous systems will grow to more than 800 million in operation by 2025 which is not at all surprising given that all the major tech company is trying hard to win the AI race. CEO Nadella puts intelligent cloud and intelligent edge at least once in each sentence he speaks at any conference or interview. Microsoft also acquired Semantic Machines just a month ago to create a better conversational platform. Juxtaposing the three acquisitions(Semantics, Github and Bonsai) back to back in course of three months proves Microsoft’s ambition in building the next big thing: Quantum Computers!