The Cloud Is Bringing Machine Learning Forward

By Rick Delgado, contributing writer

Many people wonder what the future holds when it comes to computing. We’ve heard plenty of talk surrounding artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the Internet of Things, but bringing those ideas and concepts to the mainstream remains a challenge. Uncertainty tends to reign when discussing future technologies, but there’s also no denying that these advances hold lots of potential and brings various benefits to businesses.

Machine learning is just one area that can boost companies. It’s a way to harness Big Data analytics and discover insights and trends, all without the need to explicitly create the coding for machines to find the answer. Machine learning has been around for a while in at least some form, but only recently has it begun to expand to greater numbers. The main factor allowing this to happen is the rise of cloud computing.

In the past few years, more and more businesses have been taking advantage of machine learning thanks to various services now offered through the cloud. The most recent example of this development is the announcement made in March from Google, making available the company’s Cloud Machine Learning platform. For those not familiar with Cloud Machine Learning, it’s basically what powers the features of Google’s Inbox, Translate, and Photos. In Google Photos, for example, machine learning allows for photos to be automatically labeled and organized without any manual input. This is what has led to the ability to search Google images instead of only putting in words in the search bar.

The Google announcement essentially opened up the Cloud Machine Learning platform to all interested developers. In other words, businesses of nearly any size could now access what is a very powerful machine learning tool. Without the cloud, this simply wouldn’t have been possible before. Any business that wanted to use machine learning would have needed to invest in the hardware and software itself, which could be an expensive endeavor, to say the least. As a result, only larger businesses and those with the requisite resources would be able to actually use machine learning. The cloud, however, has changed everything in this regard. As can be seen by Cloud Machine Learning, even small companies can take advantage of a machine learning platform that aids developers in creating intelligent applications.

Cloud Machine Learning is certainly not the first instance of the cloud helping machine learning flourish. In fact, Google’s entry into the fray is more of a latecomer. Machine learning platforms from both Microsoft and Amazon have already been released in previous years. Microsoft’s Azure ML was launched back in July of 2014 with its goal of reducing the complexity of machine learning and data science. It basically opened up machine learning to those who may have not been as familiar with it. Amazon Web Service’s cloud offering of machine learning was also made available the following year. Considering the three major players in the cloud computing market are now out with machine learning tools, it’s fair to say that this could be just another extension of the ongoing heated cloud competition.

It’s clear from these recent developments that any push to take machine learning mainstream should include the cloud. Whether a business is a manufacturer, retail store, or one of many software defined storage vendors, machine learning has a lot to offer. Gaining access to it was difficult before, but the cloud has provided a pathway to making that happen. Machine learning should no longer be considered some niche technology available only to the most tech savvy and resource intensive businesses out there. It’s now a valuable tool that can be used by pretty much anyone willing to learn it and apply it. The cloud not only makes machine learning a more popular tool, it also turns it into an easier one to use as well. All the major cloud providers have seen the way the cloud can enhance machine learning, and as its popularity continues to expand, more and more organizations will finally realize the benefits the technology provides.