Software engineers, artificial intelligence experts, and data scientists. These are three of the profiles Microsoft is looking for to launch a research and development (R&D) center in Barcelona focused on improving user experience with the application of artificial intelligence and deep learning models. The American software multinational has already published the first job offers for its new Barcelona operations base, which plans to hire 30 engineers and data scientists in its initial phase, although the goal is for the hub to exceed one hundred hires in the coming years.
According to Microsoft, the objective is to attract "talent from all European countries" to Barcelona and "generate an innovation vector in artificial intelligence" in collaboration with the extensive network of universities, research centers, and technology companies established in the Catalan capital. "This investment by Microsoft in Spain is further proof of the high qualification of our professionals and our ability to become a pole of attraction for talent," highlighted the president of Microsoft Spain, Alberto Granados.
With this announcement, Barcelona reaffirms its capacity to attract projects in the technological field, consolidating itself as one of the major reference hubs in Europe for undertaking and promoting digital businesses. "Companies that want to attract the best talent know that if they are in Barcelona, it's easier," said Mayor Ada Colau, who called Microsoft's announcement "excellent news." "All international rankings place us among the most attractive cities for the technology sector, and Microsoft's decision is further proof of this," she noted.
It is currently unknown in which building or neighborhood of the city the new Microsoft hub will be located. It will be one of the eight research centers worldwide for the WebXT (Web Experiences Team) division, dedicated to improving the user experience when using the Bing search engine, the Edge browser, the Windows operating system, Office programs, or the Microsoft Azure cloud computing service.
This unit dedicated to improving user experience employs 5,000 people worldwide and faces the challenge of leveraging and obtaining practical applications from the enormous potential offered by artificial intelligence and machine learning and deep learning technologies, thanks to massive data processing.
According to Microsoft, the new Barcelona hub will be part of the Search & AI team, led by Jordi Ribas, a telecommunications engineer trained at La Salle Engineering School in Barcelona, who is today one of Microsoft's corporate vice presidents in the United States. Ribas began his professional career at the Japanese NTT and Sharp, and joined Microsoft 21 years ago. Ribas is one of the main people responsible for the development of Bing, a search engine that must face Google's overwhelming market dominance by implementing new solutions that attract users.
"For me, it is an honor to announce the launch of this R&D hub in Spain," said Ribas, who has also created other centers for the Search & AI unit in London, Munich, and Paris. "After having been able to learn firsthand about the requirements, needs, and, above all, the opportunities to attract talent, I am convinced that implementing this hub in Spain will add a lot of value to Microsoft's proposal worldwide," Ribas emphasized.
According to the group founded by Bill Gates and now led by Satya Nadella, the WebXT division functions as a startup environment focused on taking on challenges that generate a great impact for the consumer, attract new users to Bing, and improve the search algorithm through large-scale data-mining, machine learning, and deep learning techniques based on artificial intelligence. Microsoft's search engine is also used by Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Qwant, and Ecosia.