Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit

Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit

Developer(s)	Microsoft Research
Initial release	25 January 2016 (2016-01-25)
Stable release	2.5.1 / 17 April 2018 (2018-04-17)
Repository	github.com/Microsoft/CNTK
Written in	C++
Operating system	Windows, Linux
Type	Library for machine learning and deep learning
License	MIT
Website	www.microsoft.com/en-us/cognitive-toolkit/

Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit, previously known as CNTK and sometimes styled as The Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit, is a deep learning framework developed by Microsoft Research. Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit describes neural networks as a series of computational steps via a directed graph.

Overview

The Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit (CNTK ) is an open-source toolkit for commercial-grade distributed deep learning. It describes neural networks as a series of computational steps via a directed graph. CNTK allows the user to easily realize and combine popular model types such as feed-forward DNNs, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and recurrent neural networks (RNNs/LSTMs). CNTK implements stochastic gradient descent ( error backpropagation) learning with automatic differentiation and parallelization across multiple GPUs and servers.

CNTK can be included as a library in your Python, C#, or C++ programs, or used as a standalone machine-learning tool through its own model description language (BrainScript). In addition you can use the CNTK model evaluation functionality from your Java programs.

The toolkit is used in all kinds of deep learning, including image, video, speech, and text data.

Features

• Symbolic loops over sequences with dynamic scheduling.
• Turn graph into parallel program through mini-batching.
• Unique parallel training algorithms (1-bit SGD, Block Momentum).

See also

• Comparison of deep learning software
• ML.NET