Search engine giant Google said it's partnering with leading experts from the University of Oxford in England to expand its research into Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The research includes the areas of understanding natural language and visual recognition.

Demis Hassabis, Google's vice president of engineering and co-founder of British AI Company DeepMind Technologies, announced the partnership in a blog post. He said his company plans to work with Dark Blue Labs and Vision Factory.

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DeepMind Technologies was recently acquired by Google for US$650 million. Dark Blue Labs and Vision factory were founded by researchers based at Oxford University.

Dark Blue Labs will lead a research project to enhance voice recognition technology. Vision Factory, on the other hand, aims to improve visual recognition technology using deep learning.

Deep learning is a new subfield of artificial intelligence that will enable computers to teach themselves how to recognize images.

Demis Hassabis said Google plans to establish a research partnership with Oxford University's Computer Science Department and Engineering Department.

Major tech companies are now apparently embracing AI to improve their technologies.

China-based Internet services company Baidu recently hired Andrew Ng, former chief of Google's AI division, to improve the company's search engine technology using deep learning.

"Whoever wins artificial intelligence will win the Internet in China and around the world. Baidu has the best shot to make it work." said Ng.

TagsAI, Oxford University, DeepMind Technologies, Dark Blue Labs, Vision Factory, Deep Learning, Natural Language and Understanding, Image Recognition, Visual Recognition