Microsoft Corp has launched a new software research lab in Beijing, only its second overseas lab after the Cambridge, UK facility it set up last year (CI No 3,184). Like Cambridge, it is expected to cost Microsoft $80m over the next six years. The plan is to employ 100 Chinese researchers within three years. A company statement said Lee Kai-fu, an expert in speech recognition, artificial intelligence, 3-D graphics and internet multimedia, will head up the laboratory. By focusing our research efforts in Beijing on areas like speech, vision, graphics, natural language and multimedia technologies, we hope we can bring these improvements to the Chinese computing experience, Lee said.
