Twitter has announced the purchase of Magic Pony Technologies, a London-based startup known for its machine learning capabilities. The purchase price was not disclosed, but outside reports say it was in the range of $150 million. The Magic Pony staff, which includes 11 Ph. D.’s, will join the Twitter Cortex team, which is researching ways to use artificial intelligence to build new products.
“Machine learning is increasingly at the core of everything we build at Twitter,” said Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s CEO and cofounder. “Magic Pony’s machine learning technology will help us build strength into our deep learning teams with world-class talent, so Twitter can continue to be the best place to see what’s happening and why it matters, first. We value deep learning research to help make our world better, and we will keep doing our part to share our work and learnings with the community.”
