Microsoft Establishes London Hub for Consumer AI Division

Microsoft has unveiled plans for a new London hub dedicated to its burgeoning consumer AI division, with Jordan Hoffmann leading the initiative. Hoffmann, an AI scientist and engineer, was recently recruited from the high-profile AI start-up Inflection AI, which Microsoft invested in last year.

This announcement follows closely on the heels of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s revelation of a new consumer AI division helmed by the founders of Inflection AI, including Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of Deepmind, acquired by Google in 2014.

Nadella had previously disclosed that “several members of the Inflection team” would be joining Microsoft’s AI unit, with Hoffmann being one of them. In a blog post, Suleyman praised Hoffmann as an “exceptional AI scientist and engineer” and announced Hoffmann’s appointment to lead the new London unit.

With Suleyman reporting directly to Nadella in the U.S., Hoffmann will oversee operations at Microsoft’s Paddington office. The team will focus on developing new language models, alongside infrastructure and tooling to support them. In the coming weeks and months, Microsoft plans to post new job openings to recruit additional AI talent to join Hoffmann’s team.

This initiative aligns with Microsoft’s recent collaboration with the U.K. Government, wherein the company pledged to invest £2.5 billion ($3.15 billion) in the U.K. over the next three years. This investment will encompass expanding datacentre infrastructure and training over one million individuals for the AI economy.

The U.K. ranks among the top-tier countries globally in AI research and development investment, trailing only behind the U.S. and China. With Google’s DeepMind also headquartered in London, a competition for top AI talent between these two tech giants seems imminent.