Google is reportedly acquiring a data science community called Kaggle (GOOG)

pulse

March 8, 2017 9:12 AM

The Kaggle platform reportedly has half a million data scientists signed up.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai

Google is planning to acquire a coding competition platform called Kaggle, TechCrunch reports.

Founded in 2010, Kaggle allows developers and data scientists to run machine learning contests, host datasets, and to write and share code.

The platform reportedly has half a million data scientists that Google would try to capitalise on in some way.

Kaggle cofounder and CEO Anthony Goldbloom didn't deny the acquisition while on a call with TechCrunch. A Google spokesman told Business Insider: " I'm afraid we cannot offer any comment on rumour and speculation."

Kaggle has raised $12.5 million (£10.3 million) in investment from the likes of Index Ventures, Google chief economist Hal Varian, and Russian investor Yuri Milner. It's unclear how much the acquisition would be worth.

Google reportedly teamed up with Kaggle earlier this month to run a $100,000 (£82,000) machine learning competition around classifying YouTube videos.

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