Microsoft adds AI to cloud-computing service

SEOUL, April 17 (Yonhap) -- Microsoft Korea, the local unit of U.S. software giant Microsoft Corp. said Monday that it has added an artificial intelligence (AI) function to its cloud-computing service, Office 365.

The company said Word, Outlook, PowerPoint and Excel will be backed up by various cloud-powered AI capabilities through data centers in South Korea by employing machine learning capabilities.

Earlier, Microsoft opened two data center regions in Seoul and the southern port city of Busan for its open cloud computing platform called Azure. The term, data center region, refers to a large complex of facilities that serve a given geographic location, considered a core technology of Microsoft's cloud computing service.

"The company will make efforts to improve work productivity to put together AI and cloud computing by utilizing knowledge learned from developing office products," Yoo Hyun-kyeong, a Microsoft Korea official, told reporters.

The company said it has also strengthened the security function in Office 365 to better detect outside threats as part of efforts to improve security.

Microsoft offers both the Azure public cloud services and its Office 365 hosted applications from 38 Azure regions across the world, with 13 of them located in Asia.

Cloud computer services have become one of the core infrastructures for Internet of Things technology, big data and other new Internet technologies. Major players, including Amazon and IBM, have become front-runners in the South Korean market for cloud computing services.

khj@yna.co.kr
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