{"id":482541,"date":"2018-04-25T00:44:50","date_gmt":"2018-04-25T07:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/?post_type=msr-blog-post&p=482541"},"modified":"2018-04-25T03:43:24","modified_gmt":"2018-04-25T10:43:24","slug":"msra-oocl-embrace-ai-digital-transformation","status":"publish","type":"msr-blog-post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/articles\/msra-oocl-embrace-ai-digital-transformation\/","title":{"rendered":"MSRA and OOCL embrace AI in digital transformation"},"content":{"rendered":"

23 April 2018, Hong Kong<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA), Microsoft\u2019s world-class research arm, and Orient Overseas Container Line Limited (OOCL)\u00a0announced their partnership in applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) research to improve network operations and achieve efficiencies within the shipping industry. The collaboration is expected to nurture over 200 AI developers over the next 12 months.<\/p>\n

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\nLeft to right: Cally Chan, General Manager of Microsoft Hong Kong; Dr. Hsiao-Wuen Hon, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft, Chairman of Microsoft\u2019s Asia-Pacific R&D Group, and Managing Director of MSRA; Steve Siu, Chief Information Officer of OOCL and Chief Executive Officer of CargoSmart; Dr. David Chung, JP, Under Secretary for Innovation and Technology of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region; and Albert Wong, Chief Executive Officer of Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cMicrosoft has been committed in providing cutting-edge AI solutions for companies across different industries to help drive digital transformation. With our Intelligent Cloud and Intelligent Edge vision, we are partnering with selected top customers worldwide to accelerate the adoption of AI innovations into products and solutions that can be applied in real business contexts. The partnership between MSRA and OOCL demonstrates our strong progress in revolutionizing the shipping industry.\u201d said\u00a0Cally Chan, General Manager of Microsoft Hong Kong<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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\nCally Chan, General Manager of Microsoft Hong Kong<\/em><\/p>\n

Engaging with Industries through AI Research and Domain Expertise<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

MSRA is Microsoft\u2019s fundamental and applied research arm in the Asia Pacific region and the leading research community for core AI technologies including machine learning. It has access to cutting-edge technologies and the best researchers in the world who continue to invent new algorithms and solutions to push the start of the art and to fulfill different customer needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cMSRA is devoted to seeking broad and deep engagement opportunities with academic communities and vertical industries, in order to promote collaboration, cultivate innovation, advance education, and turn ideas into reality,\u201d added\u00a0Dr. Hsiao-Wuen Hon, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft, Chairman of Microsoft\u2019s Asia-Pacific R&D Group, and Managing Director of Microsoft Research Asia<\/strong>. \u201cMicrosoft\u2019s AI offering is a combination of technology, business model and user experience. Shipping network operations involve multiple parties and variables that can change at any moment. Embracing AI is a complex business challenge in digital transformation. MSRA\u2019s AI research experts have joined forces with OOCL to optimize its existing shipping operations using deep and reinforcement learning, an R&D area that needs top AI researchers and domain experts for business impact validation.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\nDr. Hsiao-Wuen Hon shares how MSRA\u2019s AI research experts will join forces with OOCL to optimize existing shipping operations using deep and reinforcement learning.<\/em><\/p>\n

Driving Business Performance and Nurturing AI Talent through Partnership<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

OOCL has always been a pioneer in leveraging technology to make a real business impact and accelerate customer value, in which AI is the key in their digital transformation vision. The company has a talent base of over 1,000 developers located in San Jose, Hong Kong, Zhuhai, Shanghai and Manila. It has fully embraced a hybrid cloud infrastructure with auto-switching and auto-scaling throughout its businesses and machine learning for several years. For example, OOCL processes and analyzes over 30 million vessel data every month. By leveraging AI technology and machine learning, the company develops predictive analytics on vessel schedules and berth activities.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWith MSRA\u2019s efforts and expertise, we expect to save around USD10 million in operation costs annually by applying the AI research and techniques for optimizing shipping network operations from our most recent 15-week engagement. Moving forward, we will embark on an 18-month joint-partnership in research and development to apply deep learning and reinforcement learning in shipping network operations. Moreover, MSRA will assist us in training over 200 AI engineers by conducting machine learning and deep learning sessions at the Hong Kong Science Park over the next 12 months. We look forward to strengthening our partnership with MSRA to leverage AI research and innovations to drive digital transformation in the shipping industry and to exchange knowledge among our top developers so that we can better address customer needs with advanced technologies and predictive analytics.\u201d said\u00a0Steve Siu, Chief Information Officer of OOCL<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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\nSteve Siu, Chief Information Officer of OOCL<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

23 April 2018, Hong Kong\u00a0\u2013 Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA), Microsoft\u2019s world-class research arm, and Orient Overseas Container Line Limited (OOCL)\u00a0announced their partnership in applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) research to improve network operations and achieve efficiencies within the shipping industry. The collaboration is expected to nurture over 200 AI developers over the next 12 months. Left […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34512,"featured_media":482589,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"msr-content-parent":199560,"footnotes":""},"research-area":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"class_list":["post-482541","msr-blog-post","type-msr-blog-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_assoc_parent":{"id":199560,"type":"lab"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-blog-post\/482541"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-blog-post"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/msr-blog-post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34512"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-blog-post\/482541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":482586,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-blog-post\/482541\/revisions\/482586"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=482541"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=482541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}