Google’s machine-learning system is now open-source

Machine learning is what makes it possible for the folks at Google to research and develop the products that plenty of people use daily.

Now, Google is opening up its artificial intelligence to the public, turning its machine learning system, TensorFlow, open source.

TensorFlow is used for everyday applications like speech recognition in the Google app, Smart Reply in Inbox, and search in Google Photos.

Google decided to open source TensorFlow to correct shortcomings in the company’s original internal deep learning infrastructure called DistBelief that was developed in 2011.

According to the Google Research Blog:
“TensorFlow is general, flexible, portable, easy-to-use, and completely open source. We added all this while improving upon DistBelief’s speed, scalability, and production readiness — in fact, on some benchmarks, TensorFlow is twice as fast as DistBelief.
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The machine learning system is now available to everyone with a standalone library and associated tools, tutorials, and examples with the Apache 2.0 license, so it’s free for use in institutions.

According to Google, “Our deep learning researchers all use TensorFlow in their experiments. Our engineers use it to infuse Google Search with signals derived from deep neural networks, and to power the magic features of tomorrow. We’ll continue to use TensorFlow to serve machine learning in products, and our research team is committed to sharing TensorFlow implementations of our published ideas.”

Learn more at TensorFlow.