Twitter invests further in artificial intelligence as it buys Magic Pony Technology for a reported $150m
Machine learning startup Magic Pony Technology is poised to join the Twitter flock as the social network looks to extend its capabilities in the AI arena.
Twitter has purchased Magic Pony Technology / The Drum
The move will help Twitter bolster its image sharing, video and live-streaming experiences using Magic Pony’s neural network, which is designed to think like a human brain. This machine learning technology allows the company to build improved systems for visual processing, and could (in theory) be used to enhance pictures or videos captured on smartphones, which are often low quality.
Chief executive Jack Dorsey confirmed the purchase of the London-based firm in a blog post, saying it builds on other acquisitions Twitter has made in the space including that of Madbits in 2014 and Whetlab in 2015.
Terms of the deal have not been disclosed, however TechCrunch claims that two separate sources have told its reporters that Twitter is paying $150m in all for the deal.
Magic Pony’s team will be joining Twitter’s Cortex division, with comprises a team of engineers, data scientists, and machine learning researchers who are “dedicated to building a product in which people can easily find new experiences to share and participate in,” according to Dorsey.
“The team includes 11 PhDs with expertise across computer vision, machine learning, high-performance computing, and computational neuroscience, who are alumni of some of the top labs in the world,” he added.
Magic Pony was founded in 2014 by Rob Bishop and Zehan Wang, who met at accelerator startup Entrepreneur First.
Twitter is not the only social network to make use of AI to help improve the user experience, Facebook announced earlier this year that it was using the technology to help blind people ‘see’ images on the site.
Meanwhile, IBM Watson’s chief technology officer told The Drum that the computing giant’s cognitive system is helping broadcast and media partners to “examine social posts, online feedback and images to reach customers in more meaningful ways".