Microsoft, AWS join forces on Gluon deep learning interface

IT giants Microsoft and Amazon Web Services have joined forces to release a deep learning library aimed at helping developers build neural networks.

The Gluon application programming interface is aimed at developers of all levels, with a full set of plug-and-play blocks.

Gluon is open source, and works with the Apache MXNet deep learning framework. It will also support Microsoft's Cognitive Toolkit in an upcoming release.

The library aims to reduce complexity for developers while providing high performance for training, which in the past have been difficult goals, Microsoft said.

"The potential of machine learning can only be realised if it is accessible to all developers," AWS head of Amazon artificial intelligence Swami Sivasubramanian said.

"Today’s reality is that building and training machine learning models requires a great deal of heavy lifting and specialised expertise,” Sivasubramanian said.

“We created the Gluon interface so building neural networks and training models can be as easy as building an app. We look forward to our collaboration with Microsoft on continuing to evolve the Gluon interface for developers interested in making machine learning easier to use," he added.

Gluon allows developers to build machine learning models with a simple Python scripting language API, along with pre-built and optimised neural network components.