FB ready to share artificial intelligence technology

New York: Facebook is releasing for free the designs of a new computer server - twice as fast as those used by Facebook earlier, it designed to put more power behind artificial-intelligence software, MIT Technology review reported.

Facebook's new server design, dubbed Big Sur, was created to power deep-learning software, which processes data using roughly simulated neurons.

The invention of ways to put more power behind deep learning, using graphics processors, or GPUs, was crucial to recent leaps in the ability of computers to understand speech, images, and language. Facebook worked closely with Nvidia, a leading manufacturer of GPUs, on its new server designs, which have been stripped down to cram in more of the chips. The hardware can be used to run Google's TensorFlow software.

But the social networking giant is not the only one ready to share AI technology. Many other tech companies too are open-sourcing the technology. Opening up the technology is seen as a way to accelerate progress in the broader field, while also helping tech companies to boost their reputations. "Companies like us actually thrive on fast progress. The faster the progress can be made, the better it is for us," Yann LeCun, director of Facebook's AI Research group, was quoted as saying.

In November, Google opened up software called TensorFlow, used to power the company's speech recognition and image search. Soon after, Microsoft released the software that distributes machine-learning software across multiple machines to make it more powerful.