## An Open AI Platform for R&D and Education
One key purpose of PAI is to support the highly diversified requirements from academia and industry. PAI is completely open: it is under the MIT license. PAI is architected in a modular way: different modules can be plugged in as appropriate. This makes PAI particularly attractive to evaluate various research ideas, which include but not limited to the following components:

* Scheduling mechanism for deep learning workload
* Deep neural network application that requires evaluation under a realistic platform environment
* New deep learning framework
* AutoML
* Compiler technique for AI
* High-performance networking for AI
* Profiling tool, including network, platform, and AI job profiling
* AI Benchmark suite
* New hardware for AI, including FPGA, ASIC, Neural Processor
* AI Storage support
* AI platform management

PAI operates in an open model. It is initially designed and developed by [Microsoft Research (MSR)](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/group/systems-research-group-asia/) and [Microsoft Search Technology Center (STC)](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/ard/company/introduction.aspx) platform team.
We are glad to have [Peking University](http://eecs.pku.edu.cn/EN/), [Xi'an Jiaotong University](http://www.aiar.xjtu.edu.cn/), [Zhejiang University](http://www.cesc.zju.edu.cn/index_e.htm), and [University of Science and Technology of China](http://eeis.ustc.edu.cn/) join us to develop the platform jointly.
Contributions from academia and industry are all highly welcome.
