The latest Cognitive Toolkit beta release provides developers with support for Python and C++. The new version also adds support for a "reinforcement learning," a concept in artificial intelligence (AI). The latest version also is faster than other toolkits of its kind, especially when working with big datasets distributed across multiple machines, which is important for deep learning work, Microsoft officials said.
The Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit was designed to run on multiple GPUs (including Azure's GPU offering that is currently in preview) and is optimized to take advantage of NVIDIA hardware and Azure networking.