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Microsoft Research (MSR) is the research subsidiary of
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...
. It was created in 1991 by
Richard Rashid Richard Farris Rashid is the founder of Microsoft Research, which he created in 1991. Between 1991 and 2013, as its chief research officer and director, he oversaw the worldwide operations for Microsoft Research which grew to encompass more than ...
,
Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American businessman and philanthropist. A pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, he co-founded the software company Microsoft in 1975 with his childhood friend ...
and
Nathan Myhrvold Nathan Paul Myhrvold (born August 3, 1959), formerly Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft, is co-founder of Intellectual Ventures and the principal author of ''Modernist Cuisine'' and its successor books. Early life and education Myhrvold w ...
with the intent to advance state-of-the-art computing and solve difficult world problems through technological innovation in collaboration with academic, government, and industry researchers. The Microsoft Research team has more than 1,000 computer scientists, physicists, engineers, and mathematicians, including
Turing Award The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in the fi ...
winners,
Fields Medal The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians under 40 years of age at the International Congress of Mathematicians, International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a meeting that takes place e ...
winners, MacArthur Fellows, and Dijkstra Prize winners. Between 2010 and 2018, 154,000 AI patents were filed worldwide, with Microsoft having by far the largest percentage of those patents, at 20%.Louis Columbus, January 6, 201
Microsoft Leads The AI Patent Race Going Into 2019
''
Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...
''
According to estimates in trade publications, Microsoft spent about $6 billion annually in research initiatives from 2002 to 2010 and has spent from $10–14 billion annually since 2010. Microsoft Research has made significant advances in the field of AI which it has infused in its products including
Kinect Kinect is a discontinued line of motion sensing input devices produced by Microsoft and first released in 2010. The devices generally contain RGB color model, RGB cameras, and Thermographic camera, infrared projectors and detectors that map dep ...
,
Bing Bing most often refers to: * Bing Crosby (1903–1977), American singer * Microsoft Bing, a web search engine Bing may also refer to: Food and drink * Bing (bread), a Chinese flatbread * Bing (soft drink), a UK brand * Bing cherry, a varie ...
, Holo Lens, Cortana,
Microsoft Translator Microsoft Translator or Bing Translator is a multilingual machine translation cloud service provided by Microsoft. Microsoft Translator is a part of Microsoft Cognitive Services and integrated across multiple consumer, developer, and enterprise pro ...
,
Linkedin LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented Social networking service, social network. It was launched on May 5, 2003 by Reid Hoffman and Eric Ly. Since December 2016, LinkedIn has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft. ...
, Havok and Dynamics to provide its customers with more benefits and better service. The mission statement of MSR is: # Expand the state of the art in each of the areas in which we do research # Rapidly transfer innovative technologies into Microsoft products # Ensure that Microsoft products have a future


Key people

Microsoft Research includes the core Microsoft Research labs and Microsoft Research AI, Microsoft Research NExT (for New Experiences and Technologies), and other incubation efforts all directed by corporate vice president Peter Lee.


Research areas

Microsoft research is categorized into the following broad areas: Microsoft Research sponsors the ''Microsoft Research Fellowship'' for graduate students.


Research laboratories

Microsoft has research labs around the world including the following non-exhaustive list: * Microsoft Research Redmond was founded on the Microsoft Redmond campus in 1991. It has about 350 researchers and is headed by Donald Kossmann. The bulk of research on the Redmond, Washington campus focuses on areas such as theory, artificial intelligence, machine learning, systems and networking, security, privacy, human–computer interaction, and wearable technologies. * Microsoft Research Cambridge was founded in the United Kingdom in 1997 by Roger Needham and is headed by
Christopher Bishop Christopher Michael Bishop (born 7 April 1959) is a British computer scientist. He is a Microsoft Technical Fellow and Director oMicrosoft Research AI4Science He is also Honorary Professor of Computer Science at the University of Edinburgh, and ...
. Antony Rowstron and Abigail Sellen are Deputy Directors. The lab conducts research on topics including machine learning, security and information retrieval, and maintains close ties to the
University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...
and the
University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory The Department of Computer Science and Technology, formerly the Computer Laboratory, is the computer science department of the University of Cambridge. it employed 56 faculty members, 45 support staff, 105 research staff, and about 205 researc ...
. * Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA or MSR Asia) was founded in Beijing in November 1998. It has expanded rapidly and now has more than 300 researchers and developers, along with approximately 300 visiting scientists and students (including its new satellite office in Shanghai). Its focus includes natural user interfaces, multimedia, data-intensive computing, search and online advertising, natural language processing, and computer science fundamentals. This lab forms part of the Microsoft Asia-Pacific Research and Development Group (ARD) R&D center, which also has campuses in Suzhou, Shenzhen, Tokyo, and Taipei. * Microsoft Research India is sited in
Bengaluru Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...
(Bangalore) and is headed by Sriram Rajamani. * Microsoft Research Station Q, on the campus of the
University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an ...
, was founded in 2006. Its collaborators explore theoretical and experimental approaches to creating the quantum analog of the traditional bit—the
qubit In quantum computing, a qubit () or quantum bit is a basic unit of quantum information—the quantum version of the classic binary bit physically realized with a two-state device. A qubit is a two-state (or two-level) quantum-mechanical syste ...
. The group is led by
Michael Freedman Michael Hartley Freedman (born April 21, 1951) is an American mathematician at Microsoft Station Q, a research group at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 1986, he was awarded a Fields Medal for his work on the 4-dimensional gen ...
. Its Quantum Architectures and Computation (QuARC) group is based in Redmond, while other Station Q satellite locations exist on the campuses of
Delft University of Technology The Delft University of Technology (TU Delft; ) is the oldest and largest Dutch public university, public Institute of technology, technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. It specializes in engineering, technology, computing, design, a ...
,
Purdue University Purdue University is a Public university#United States, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded ...
,
University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen (, KU) is a public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia, after Uppsala University. ...
, and
University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...
. * Microsoft Research New England was established in 2008 in Cambridge, Massachusetts adjacent to the MIT campus by Jennifer Chayes who also managed the New York and Montreal labs. The lab is now managed by Susan Dumais. The lab collaborates with the broader research community and pursues interdisciplinary research that brings together computer scientists and social scientists to develop future applications. * Microsoft Research New York City was established on May 3, 2012. Susan Dumais serves as Managing Director of this location as well as the New England and Montreal labs. The lab collaborates with academia and other Microsoft Research labs in computational and behavioral social sciences, computational economics and prediction markets, machine learning, and information retrieval. * Microsoft Research Montreal was established after the acquisition of Maluuba by Microsoft in 2017. Susan Dumais serves as Managing Director of this location as well as the New England and New York City labs. The lab collaborates with academia and other Microsoft Research labs in natural language processing (specifically machine reading comprehension), deep learning and reinforcement learning. * Gray Systems Lab, in Madison, Wisconsin. Named after Jim Gray, GSL opened in 2008 to research database technologies. * Microsoft Research Asia - Tokyo was established in November 2024 and is headed by Yasuyuki Matsushita. The lab focuses on embodied AI, societal AI, well-being and neuroscience, and industry innovation. It collaborates with Japanese academic and industry partners while maintaining close ties with other Microsoft Research Asia facilities. The lab operates various research programs including joint research initiatives and internship opportunities, contributing to AI innovation in the Asia-Pacific region.


Former research laboratories

* Microsoft Research Silicon Valley, located in
Mountain View, California Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, part of the San Francisco Bay Area. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, the population was 82,376 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Mountain V ...
, was founded in August 2001 and closed in September 2014. Silicon Valley research focused on
distributed computing Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems, defined as computer systems whose inter-communicating components are located on different networked computers. The components of a distributed system commu ...
and included security and privacy, protocols,
fault-tolerance Fault tolerance is the ability of a system to maintain proper operation despite failures or faults in one or more of its components. This capability is essential for high-availability, mission critical, mission-critical, or even life-critical sys ...
, large-scale systems, concurrency, computer architecture, internet search and services, and related theory.


Collaborations

Microsoft Research invests in multi-year collaborative joint research with academic institutions at Barcelona Supercomputing Center,
INRIA The National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (Inria) () is a French national research institution focusing on computer science and applied mathematics. It was created under the name French Institute for Research in Comp ...
,
Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...
,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...
, São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), the Microsoft Research Centre for Social NUI and others. Since 2016, Microsoft has partnered with Toyota Connected to research technology for
telematics Telematics is an interdisciplinary field encompassing telecommunications, vehicular technologies (road transport, road safety, etc.), electrical engineering (sensors, instrumentation, wireless communications, etc.), and computer science (multimedia ...
, data analytics and network security services. In October 2019, Microsoft partnered with
Novartis Novartis AG is a Swiss multinational corporation, multinational pharmaceutical company, pharmaceutical corporation based in Basel, Switzerland. Novartis is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world and was the eighth largest by re ...
to apply
artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...
to enhance personalized medicine research. In 2023, Microsoft signed a multi-year deal to collaborate with Syneos Health in development of a platform to leverage
machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...
for the optimization of clinical trials.


AI for Good

Microsoft's "AI for Good" initiative represents a significant commitment to leveraging artificial intelligence technology for social and environmental benefits. This initiative is part of a broader vision by Microsoft to utilize AI in addressing some of the world's most challenging issues, including those related to health, the environment, accessibility, cultural heritage, and humanitarian action. AI for Good includes topics like Microsoft AI for Earth.


Quantum computing

Microsoft Azure Quantum has researched
quantum information science Quantum information science is a field that combines the principles of quantum mechanics with information theory to study the processing, analysis, and transmission of information. It covers both theoretical and experimental aspects of quantum phys ...
since 2000 and is developing a
topological quantum computer A topological quantum computer is a type of quantum computer. It utilizes anyons, a type of quasiparticle that occurs in two-dimensional systems. The anyons' world lines intertwine to form braids in a three-dimensional spacetime (one temporal ...
based on Majorana zero modes. In 2000, physicist Alexei Kitaev at Microsoft Research proposed developing a topological quantum computer from Majorana quasiparticles. In 2002,
Michael Freedman Michael Hartley Freedman (born April 21, 1951) is an American mathematician at Microsoft Station Q, a research group at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 1986, he was awarded a Fields Medal for his work on the 4-dimensional gen ...
, who led Microsoft’s quantum research at Station Q in 2005, authored a paper with Kitaev demonstrating how a topological quantum computer could perform any computation that a conventional quantum computer could. In 2005, 2006 and 2008,
Sankar Das Sarma Sankar Das Sarma () is an India-born American theoretical condensed matter physicist. He has been a member of the department of physics at University of Maryland, College Park since 1980. Das Sarma is the Richard E. Prange Chair in Physics, ...
, Freedman and
Chetan Nayak Chetan Nayak (born 1971) is an Indian-American physicist and computer scientist specializing in quantum computing. He is a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a technical fellow and distinguished engineer on the Microso ...
developed theoretical proposals for a topological qubit using the
fractional quantum Hall effect The fractional quantum Hall effect (fractional QHE or FQHE) is the observation of precisely quantized plateaus in the Hall conductance of 2-dimensional (2D) electrons at fractional values of e^2/h, where ''e'' is the electron charge and ''h'' i ...
and for topological quantum computing based on non-abelian anyons. In 2015, Microsoft developed the theoretical framework of Majorana zero modes for information processing through braiding-based topological quantum computing. In 2023, Microsoft research demonstrated the creation and control of Majorana quasiparticles for topological quantum computing. In 2024, Microsoft created 4 logical qubits from 30 physical qubits, demonstrating reliable logical qubits by reducing the logical error rate by 800x compared to the physical error rate.


See also

* Microsoft Award *
Microsoft Research Maps Microsoft Research Maps (MSR Maps) was a free online repository of public domain aerial imagery and topographic maps provided by the United States Geological Survey (USGS). The site was a collaboration between Microsoft Research (MSR), Bing Maps, ...


References


External links

*
The Microsoft Research Blog

Microsoft Developing Project
(news archive from
Softpedia Softpedia is a software and tech news website based in Romania. It indexes, reviews and hosts downloadable software and reports news on technology and science topics. It is ranked as among of the top download portals on the internet. History So ...
)
Microsoft Research Asia
local Chinese website {{authority control 1991 establishments in the United States Computer science research organizations Organizations established in 1991 Research and development organizations Research institutes in Washington (state) Artificial intelligence laboratories