AI, Cloud Wars: Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Google in Robot Race?

The rise of artificial intelligence and robotic advancements aren't new in modern society nowadays. Improvements in the field are commonplace and these things appear one after the other. However, it appears there's more to the biggest tech companies than just "advancing" technologies.

The biggest names in tech such as Facebook, Microsoft, Google and Amazon have spent the entirety of 2016 "hyping" their ongoing quest to build a "general artificial intelligence," and all the wonderful extra products that can come along with it.

According to Business Insider, it can be remembered that just a few weeks ago, Google DeepMind AI has released some code as free open source. 

Facebook even released some videos that explained exactly how AI works. Microsoft now released data to help train virtual assistants as well. Amazon Lex has also been announced, a service for developers to build Alexa-like intelligence to their apps.

According to Business Insider, it appears there's a bigger agenda  given the companies' subtle "need" to put so much public focus on their endeavors. This is especially since no matter how "hyped" the tech community gets for AI, it's still abstract to a broader audience.

However, according to Business Insider, if this were to be analyzed, then it seems there's more practical reasons for the big four companies.

For instance, the rise of AI is becoming a pretty big deal. Google CEO Sundar Pichai, a vocal fan of the concept, wants a world where every user has a "personal" Google. 

Facebook and Microsoft also wants to show how AI is improving in their apps, something that wouldn't have been possible. 

However, much as the concept is interesting, there's not enough people that are machine learning experts. This means the hype on AI is to encourage developers to pursue a more active field in terms of AI, especially for college students and self-taught individuals.

Meaning, if someone wants a tech-related job, then time should be spent learning programming and statistics, and probably play with the AI code from Microsoft, Facebook, Google and the others.

Meanwhile, another reason is probably the cloud. It can be remembered that Amazon, Microsoft and Google are currently the biggest players in the cloud. 

In the cloud computing industry, companies that have access to this kind of technology can have functional unlimited supercomputing power.

Meaning, it's a race between Amazon, Microsoft and Google to build the "perfect" AI, with Amazon Web Services, Azure and Google Cloud being pinned against one another.

However, to win in the concept, they have to win the support of developers. This means they should add not only what developers need, but also what they want.

Still, AI remains to be a very young concept today, and lots of companies will be wanting to use them tomorrow. It's better to know the landscape of things now to be prepared of what's to come.