Microsoft has just kicked off its Windows Developer Day in Redmond, which is a great opportunity to learn more about what’s coming in the next Windows 10 release. Over the past couple of months, we saw Microsoft introduce many intelligent features in products such as Office or the Windows 10 Photos app, and the upcoming major Windows 10 update will be all about allowing developers to do the same thanks to a new AI platform for Windows developers.
“With the next major update to Windows 10, we begin to deliver the advances that have been built into our apps and services as part of the Windows 10 platform,” the company said today. “Every developer that builds apps on Windows 10 will be able to use AI to deliver more powerful and engaging experiences.”
This new AI platform will be available across the whole Windows device family including PCs, servers, IoT devices and HoloLens. Developers will have access to pre-trained machine learning models to make their apps more intelligent, with the possibility to perform AI tasks on the device or in the cloud. “Windows can perform AI evaluation tasks using the local processing capabilities of the PC, enabling real-time analysis of large local data such as images and video,” the company explained.
By making AI and machine learning technologies an integral part of Windows 10, Microsoft is trying to build the best platform for AI developers. Microsoft also continues to push ONNX, the new open ecosystem for interchangeable AI models supported by an increasing list of frameworks and hardware vendors. Visual Studio Preview 15.7 will introduce better ONNX file support for UWP projects, and the Microsoft Custom Vision Service (currently in public preview) will soon support creating ONNX models for Windows.
If you’re a developer, you can learn more about how to leverage this new AI platform by watching the keynote with Microsoft CVP Kevin Gallo. The promise of more intelligent apps on Windows is very exciting for consumers, but as always it will up to developers to embrace these new capabilities.
