Microsoft to give researchers grants for its Azure Machine Learning service

Microsoft wants to boost adoption of the still new Azure Machine Learning service running on its public cloud. A free tier of access was one step in that direction, and now it’s taking proposals for research grants.

“Whether you just want to get your feet wet or you are ready to dive in completely, we invite you to join the machine learning revolution,” Kenji Takeda, a solutions architect and technical manager at Microsoft Research, wrote in a blog post announcing the program today. “Azure ML might just transform your research.”

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Azure Machine Learning users can build predictive models, construct recommendation engines, and develop fraud prevention systems, which can then be woven into applications. The service enables users to call on tools they’re already familiar with, like the R programming language.

The move to add research grants represents a fresh attempt to market the Azure cloud service as Microsoft is trying hard to show its advantages over other public clouds, not least those from Google and Amazon, both of which have been making plenty of announcements lately.

Amazon Web Services has previously offered grants to researchers. So has Microsoft, as a matter of fact. But for machine learning, Microsoft has a chance of increasing adoption among researchers. And they might well move on to companies that are willing to pay money for software.

The deadline for submitting the next wave of proposals: Nov. 15. More information on the grant program is available here