Microsoft recently announced it acquired robotic process automation (RPA) startup Softomotive. And the company also unveiled that it launched a supercomputer for OpenAI.
Softomotive Acquisition
Charles Lamanna, CVP of Low Code Application Platform at Microsoft, pointed out that Softomotive’s desktop automation solutions platform will be joining with Microsoft’s Power Automate (previously known as Microsoft Flow) at an affordable price.
And now Softomotive’s WinAutomation platform is available at no cost to existing Power Automate customers with RPA attended licenses.
“Softomotive currently helps more than 9,000 global customers seamlessly automate business processes across legacy and modern desktop applications. Together with Power Automate, WinAutomation will provide customers additional options for RPA desktop authoring so anyone can build a bot and automate Windows-based tasks. The combined offering will also enable RPA connectivity to many new apps and services including SAP and traditional green-screen terminal applications,” said Lamanna.
Marios Stavropoulos, Co-Founder & CEO at Softomotive, noted that Microsoft provided a natural path for greater stability along with complementary solutions such as augmented artificial intelligence and analytics. Plus Softomotive will be able to better provide customers with better professional services.
New Supercomputer
Microsoft also announced it built one of the top five supercomputers in the world, which was designed specifically for OpenAI.
Microsoft made this announcement during the Build conference. The Build conference is being held virtually this year instead of in-person in Seattle.
Microsoft will be using the supercomputer to train OpenAI’s artificial intelligence models. OpenAI launched in 2015 and it received funding initially from Elon Musk and Sam Altman. Musk is no longer associated with the company and Altman is now the CEO.
OpenAI is focused on developing artificial intelligence that is able to outperform humans. The goal of the project is to ensure the technology benefits humanity rather than being used in the wrong hands.
Microsoft’s new supercomputer has 285,000 CPU cores, 10,000 graphics processing units, and 400 gigabits per second of connectivity for each GPU server.
Last year, Microsoft and OpenAI revealed they were partnering. The two companies agreed Microsoft would become a preferred partner for commercializing new AI technologies. Microsoft invested $1 billion into the project and the two companies agreed to build Azure AI supercomputing platforms. This new supercomputer is the first major result.
