To manage the advancement of artificial intelligence at its Sydney-based research centre, Google Research Australia, two executives have been appointed by Google.
As part of the search engine giant’s $1 billion Digital Future Initiative, first launched in November last year to develop digital infrastructure, research, and collaborations in Australia, Google Australia engineering site lead Grace Chung and professor Peter Bartlett will jointly head the hub.
Bartlett is a professor at the University of California at Berkeley’s Departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and Statistics, while Chung is one of Google’s most seasoned Australian engineers and research scientists.
In a blog post for Google Australia, Chung, who has assumed the role of head of Google Research Australia, said that his team would “seek to apply and enhance AI and machine learning to tackle major concerns for Australians and people across the world.”
The expanding team, according to Chung, “is eager to seize this opportunity and to begin exploring new avenues for AI to make significant advancements in a number of sectors.”
According to Chung, “jobs in research have frequently been scarce due to geography and international competitiveness.”
So it’s wonderful to be able to offer fresh chances for Australia’s greatest researchers to apply their skills locally for Australians’ benefit.
“My transfer will imply more of the fantastic relationships I already have within Google, notably with the V8 team, working on high-impact open source code bases solving extremely intriguing problems,” Professor Blackburn wrote in a tweet.
As the lab expands, I’m looking forward to collaborating with academic researchers all throughout Australia.
“Finally, I’m able to maintain my association with ANU and oversee my amazing students as a member of Google Research.”