Bekker's Blog

Blog archive

Horvitz Assumes New Role as Chief Scientific Officer at Microsoft

Microsoft has added a new office to the C-suite.

Eric Horvitz has been named Chief Scientific Officer, a new job title at Microsoft. The company has recently been expanding beyond its software legacy -- where artificial intelligence is a natural fit -- to more physical areas of science, such as quantum computing, health care and the new corporate initiative to become carbon negative.

"The focus of the chief scientist position is to provide cross-company leadership on advances and trends related to scientific matters and on important issues and opportunities rising at the intersection of science, technology and society," Horvitz said in a post on LinkedIn this week. "I'm looking forward to the chance to more deeply shape our company's activities, focus of attention, investments, and understandings of how today's efforts and near-term plans relate to trends -- and potential surprises -- on the horizon."

Horvitz said his office will focus on AI principles, applications and directions, as well as biology, medical informatics, physics, sustainability, economics, social sciences and behavioral sciences. Horvitz, who joined Microsoft in a research role in 1993, was most recently in charge of Microsoft Research Labs.

Peter Lee will take over the lab role in addition to his work as corporate vice president for Microsoft Healthcare, which may hint at more collaboration between Microsoft Research and the company's health care initiatives.

Posted by Scott Bekker on March 11, 2020


Featured

  • Salesforce To Acquire Informatica in $8 Billion Deal

    Salesforce announced on Tuesday it plans to acquire data management firm Informatica for $8 billion.

  • An image of planes flying around a globe

    2025 Microsoft Conference Calendar: For Partners, IT Pros and Developers

    Here's your guide to all the IT training sessions, partner meet-ups and annual Microsoft conferences you won't want to miss.

  • Microsoft Gives Orgs More Power to 'Tune' AI Agents

    At its Build 2025 conference this week, Microsoft unveiled significant advancements aimed at empowering enterprises to create more sophisticated AI agents.

  • Build 2025: Microsoft Charts Wider Path for AI Agents

    At Build 2025, Microsoft unveiled its strategic vision for the future of AI agents, emphasizing the development of autonomous systems capable of performing complex tasks across various applications.