Microsoft Continues To Spend Their Money, This Time They Acquired Nuace Communications To Strengthen Health Business

Microsoft illustration (Wired)

JAKARTA - Microsoft is rumored to be buying artificial intelligence (AI) company Nuance Communications. The acquisition, valued at USD 16 billion or approximately IDR 234 trillion aims to strengthen voice recognition technology as well as health business networks.

Bloomberg News, reporting the deal between Nuance and Microsoft, is ongoing. The company made by Bill Gates will pay USD 56 per share of Nuance, or 23 percent more than the current price of Nuance shares.

"AI is technology's most important priority, and health is its most urgent application", said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in his official statement, as quoted by The Verge.

Nuance is known for its Dragon software which uses deep learning to transcribe speech and improve its accuracy over time by adjusting it to the user's voice.

They have licensed this technology to many services, including Apple's Siri voice assistant app. The Dragon Medical One platform developed by Nuance can be configured to recognize medical terms and is used by more than half a million doctors worldwide and 77 percent of hospitals in the United States.

Nuance will be Microsoft's second-largest acquisition after buying LinkedIn in 2016. At that time they spent USD 26 billion to buy the professional network.

Microsoft also recently acquired gaming company Zenimax for USD 7.5 billion. The software and cloud giant is also rumored to be buying Discord, a chat service for gamers, for around USD 10 billion.

On the other hand, Microsoft also won a contract of USD 22 billion or approximately IDR 174 trillion to supply augmented reality headsets (AR headsets) to combat forces/military of the United States Army (US Army). It is planned that this futuristic technology will be used as a Visual Augmentation System - to increase awareness of soldiers about their environment and their ability to see targets and dangers.