Microsoft has announced a new partnership with Amazon to create a open-source deep learning library called Gluon. The idea behind Gluon is to make artificial intelligence more accessible and valuable.
According to Microsoft, the library simplifies the process of making deep learning models and will enable developers to run multiple deep learning libraries. This announcement follows their introduction of the Open Neural Network Exchange (ONNX) format, which is another AI ecosystem.
Gluon supports symbolic and imperative programming, which is something not supported by many other toolkits, Microsoft explained. It also will support hybridization of code, allowing compute graphs to be cached and reused in future iterations. It offers a layers library that reuses pre-built building blocks to define model architecture. Gluon natively supports loops and ragged tensors, allowing for high execution efficiency for RNN and LSTM models, as well as supporting sparse data and operations. It also provides the ability to do advanced scheduling on multiple GPUs.
“This is another step in fostering an open AI ecosystem to accelerate innovation and democratization of AI-making it more accessible and valuable to all,” Microsoft wrote in a blog post. “With Gluon, developers will be able to deliver new and exciting AI innovations faster by using a higher-level programming model and the tools and platforms they are most comfortable with.”
The library will be available for Apache MXNet or Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit. It is already available on GitHub for Apache MXNet, with Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit support on the way.
