Google Ramps Up Investment in AI with Acquisition of Startup Halli Labs

Google has acquired an artificial intelligence startup.

The software giant scooped up Halli Labs, a machine learning company based in India, for an undisclosed sum.

“Halli Labs was founded with the goal of applying modern AI and ML techniques to old problems and domains — in order to help technology enable people to do whatever it is that they want to do, easier and better,” said cofounder Pankaj Gupta. “Well, what better place than Google to help us achieve this goal?”

According to Gupta, his startup will be joining Google’s Next Billion Users team.

“Looking forward to building some cool stuff together,” tweeted Google’s Ceasar Sengupta, confirming the transaction.

Nearly three dozen artificial intelligence startups were acquired in the first quarter of this year, according to research firm CB Insights, a figure that double’s last year’s pace. Google has been particularly aggressive in 2017—it just launched Gradient Ventures, an AI startup fund—but others like Apple and Facebook are not far behind.