Infer.NET

Infer.NET is a free and open source .NET software library for machine learning.^[2] It supports running Bayesian inference in graphical models and can also be used for probabilistic programming.^[3]

Infer.NET

Original author(s)	Microsoft Research
Developer(s)	Microsoft, .NET Foundation
Initial release	2008; 16 years ago (2008)
Stable release	v0.4.2301.0301[1] / January 3, 2023; 21 months ago (2023-01-03)
Repository	github.com/dotnet/infer
Written in	C#
Operating system	Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux
Platform	.NET Framework, .NET, Mono
Type	Machine learning software library
License	MIT License
Website	dotnet.github.io/infer/

Overview

Infer.NET follows a model-based approach and is used to solve different kinds of machine learning problems including standard problems like classification, recommendation or clustering, customized solutions and domain-specific problems. The framework is used in various different domains such as bioinformatics, epidemiology, computer vision, and information retrieval.^[4][5]

Development of the framework was started by a team at Microsoft’s research centre in Cambridge, UK in 2004. It was first released for academic use in 2008 and later open sourced in 2018.^[5] In 2013, Microsoft was awarded the USPTO’s Patents for Humanity Award in Information Technology category for Infer.NET and the work in advanced machine learning techniques.^[6][7]

Infer.NET is used internally at Microsoft as the machine learning engine in some of their products such as Office, Azure, and Xbox.^[8]

The source code is licensed under MIT License and available on GitHub.^[9] It is also available as NuGet package.^[10]

See also

• Free and open-source software portal

• Machine learning
• ML.NET
• scikit-learn

References

1. "dotnet/infer". GitHub. 3 January 2023.
2. "Microsoft's popular machine learning framework Infer.NET goes open source". 8 October 2018.
3. Millman, Rene (8 October 2018). "Microsoft makes Infer.NET machine learning framework open-source". Internet of Business.
4. Bandyopadhyay, Avimanyu (13 October 2018). "Microsoft Open Sources Infer.NET AI Framework [For Humanity]".
5. Speed, Richard. "Microsoft open-sources Infer.NET AI code just in time for the weekend". www.theregister.com.
6. "2013 Award Recipients". www.uspto.gov.
7. "Microsoft Wins "Patents for Humanity" Award For Infer.NET From USPTO". 12 April 2013.
8. Krill, Paul (October 9, 2018). "Microsoft open-sources Infer.Net model-based machine learning". InfoWorld.
9. "dotnet/infer". November 3, 2020 – via GitHub.
10. "Infer.Net 2.4.0". www.nuget.org.

Further reading

• Knowles, D.; Parts, L.; Glass, D.; Winn, John (2010). "Modeling skin and ageing phenotypes using latent variable models in Infer.NET" (PDF). Microsoft.
• Winn, John; Minka, Tom (2009). "Probabilistic Programming with Infer.NET".
• Winn, John; Simpson, Angela; Custovic, Adnan; Y. F. Tan, Vincent (2008). "Immune System Modeling with Infer.NET" (PDF). Microsoft.

External links

• Infer.NET
• GitHub - dotnet/infer
• Machine Intelligence and Perception - Microsoft Research
• Infer.NET - Practical Implementation Issues and a Comparison of Approximation Techniques