Kyle Wiggers, Microsoft launches Project Bonsai, an AI development platform for industrial systems, Venture Beat, May 19, 2020.
Microsoft announced the public preview of Project Bonsai, a platform for building autonomous industrial control systems, during its Build 2020 online conference. The company also debuted an experimental platform called Project Moab that’s designed to familiarize engineers and developers with Bonsai’s functionality.
Project Bonsai is a “machine teaching” service that combines machine learning, calibration, and optimization to bring autonomy to the control systems at the heart of robotic arms, bulldozer blades, forklifts, underground drills, rescue vehicles, wind and solar farms, and more. Control systems form a core component of machinery across sectors like manufacturing, chemical processing, construction, energy, and mining, helping manage everything from electrical substations and HVAC installations to fleets of factory floor robots. But developing AI and machine learning algorithms atop them — algorithms that could tackle processes previously too challenging to automate — requires expertise....