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Company · Redmond · United States

Microsoft (United States)

In research, Microsoft (United States) stands highest in Computer Science (#18 of 4,417 worldwide), Artificial Intelligence (#13 of 1,862 worldwide) and Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (#16 of 963 worldwide), 2022-now. Relative to its size it is most specialised in Software, Hardware and Architecture and Signal Processing (Software is 14.8× its share of world research).

World rank, 2022-now
#293
of 22,385 · #161 all time
Rank in United States
#83
of 3,332
Research works
28k
▼ 10% vs 2018-21
Citations
2M
71.0 per fractional work
Top-10% rate
20.7%
all institutions 10.0%
vs its own fields
1.71×
1.00× is exactly expected
Open access
30%
world 40%
International
41%
world 18%

What is Microsoft (United States) known for in research?

The fields where it stands highest, 2022-now, ranked among every institution above the floor in each field.

FieldWorld rankWhere that sitsTop-10% rateWorksAll time
Computer ScienceField #18 of 4,417 23.6%2,154 #7
Artificial IntelligenceSubfield #13 of 1,862 22.4%916 #7
Computer Vision and Pattern RecognitionSubfield #16 of 963 30.1%395 #2
Physical SciencesDomain #197 of 10,670 22.8%2,724 #94
Information SystemsSubfield #27 of 1,321 18.9%247 #1
Computer Networks and CommunicationsSubfield #18 of 728 21.0%230 #2
Social SciencesDomain #448 of 9,585 19.0%560 #249
EngineeringField #313 of 5,901 18.5%356 #216
Signal ProcessingSubfield #10 of 169 24.3%134 #1
Health SciencesDomain #765 of 9,902 15.6%232 #886

Each strip is that field's whole ranked pool, with the notch where Microsoft (United States) sits in it, in the colour of the band that rank falls in. The track under the rate is the rate itself: it carries no average mark, because the average differs by field (from about 6% in Dentistry to 21% in Economics).

Which of those standings moved

The same fields on both windows: where it stood over the whole record, and where it stands in 2022-now. The distance is the story, and it is the one thing the two rank columns above cannot show.

  1. Computer Science#7 #18
  2. Artificial Intelligence#7 #13
  3. Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition#2 #16
  4. Physical Sciences#94 #197
  5. Information Systems#1 #27
  6. Computer Networks and Communications#2 #18
  7. Social Sciences#249 #448
  8. Engineering#216 #313
  9. Signal Processing#1 #10
  10. Health Sciences#886 #765
all time2022-now, better2022-now, worse

A dot further right is a better standing. Fields it was not ranked in over the whole record are left out.

Which fields of science does Microsoft (United States) work in?

In 2022-now, 74% of research at Microsoft (United States) is in Physical Sciences, 15% in Social Sciences. Its largest fields are Computer Science (58%), Engineering (10%), Social Sciences (6%). It does 1.9× the world's share of Physical Sciences.

Physical Sciences: 3,024 fractional works · 74.1% of its workComputer Science: 2,384 fractional works · 58.4% of its workArtificial Intelligence: 1,009 fractional works · 24.7% of its workComputer Vision and Pattern Recognition: 425 fractional works · 10.4% of its workInformation Systems: 284 fractional works · 7.0% of its workComputer Networks and Communications: 263 fractional works · 6.4% of its workSignal Processing: 143 fractional works · 3.5% of its workHardware and Architecture: 59 fractional works · 1.4% of its workComputational Theory and Mathematics: 56 fractional works · 1.4% of its workHuman-Computer Interaction: 54 fractional works · 1.3% of its workSoftware: 39 fractional works · 1.0% of its workComputer Science Applications: 32 fractional works · 0.8% of its workComputer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design: 22 fractional works · 0.5% of its workEngineering: 397 fractional works · 9.7% of its workElectrical and Electronic Engineering: 135 fractional works · 3.3% of its workControl and Systems Engineering: 41 fractional works · 1.0% of its workIndustrial and Manufacturing Engineering: 35 fractional works · 0.9% of its workBiomedical Engineering: 32 fractional works · 0.8% of its workComputational Mechanics: 27 fractional works · 0.7% of its workAerospace Engineering: 27 fractional works · 0.7% of its workMechanical Engineering: 24 fractional works · 0.6% of its workMedia Technology: 21 fractional works · 0.5% of its workOcean Engineering: 16 fractional works · 0.4% of its workBuilding and Construction: 12 fractional works · 0.3% of its workAutomotive Engineering: 11 fractional works · 0.3% of its workCivil and Structural Engineering: 8 fractional works · 0.2% of its workSmaller subfields together: 9 fractional works · 0.2% of its workPhysics and Astronomy: 75 fractional works · 1.8% of its workAtomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics: 34 fractional works · 0.8% of its workStatistical and Nonlinear Physics: 23 fractional works · 0.6% of its workSmaller subfields together: 19 fractional works · 0.5% of its workEnvironmental Science: 45 fractional works · 1.1% of its workEnvironmental Engineering: 12 fractional works · 0.3% of its workGlobal and Planetary Change: 9 fractional works · 0.2% of its workSmaller subfields together: 24 fractional works · 0.6% of its workMathematics: 45 fractional works · 1.1% of its workStatistics and Probability: 24 fractional works · 0.6% of its workSmaller subfields together: 21 fractional works · 0.5% of its workMaterials Science: 39 fractional works · 1.0% of its workMaterials Chemistry: 30 fractional works · 0.7% of its workSmaller subfields together: 9 fractional works · 0.2% of its workEarth and Planetary Sciences: 24 fractional works · 0.6% of its workChemistry: 8 fractional works · 0.2% of its workEnergy: 3 fractional works · 0.1% of its workChemical Engineering: 3 fractional works · 0.1% of its workSocial Sciences: 620 fractional works · 15.2% of its workSocial Sciences: 232 fractional works · 5.7% of its workSociology and Political Science: 72 fractional works · 1.8% of its workSafety Research: 46 fractional works · 1.1% of its workEducation: 18 fractional works · 0.4% of its workPolitical Science and International Relations: 17 fractional works · 0.4% of its workCommunication: 14 fractional works · 0.3% of its workTransportation: 12 fractional works · 0.3% of its workDemography: 9 fractional works · 0.2% of its workSmaller subfields together: 44 fractional works · 1.1% of its workDecision Sciences: 130 fractional works · 3.2% of its workManagement Science and Operations Research: 78 fractional works · 1.9% of its workInformation Systems and Management: 43 fractional works · 1.1% of its workSmaller subfields together: 8 fractional works · 0.2% of its workBusiness, Management and Accounting: 111 fractional works · 2.7% of its workManagement Information Systems: 60 fractional works · 1.5% of its workMarketing: 17 fractional works · 0.4% of its workStrategy and Management: 11 fractional works · 0.3% of its workOrganizational Behavior and Human Resource Management: 9 fractional works · 0.2% of its workSmaller subfields together: 15 fractional works · 0.4% of its workPsychology: 75 fractional works · 1.8% of its workSocial Psychology: 30 fractional works · 0.7% of its workExperimental and Cognitive Psychology: 15 fractional works · 0.4% of its workDevelopmental and Educational Psychology: 12 fractional works · 0.3% of its workClinical Psychology: 9 fractional works · 0.2% of its workApplied Psychology: 9 fractional works · 0.2% of its workEconomics, Econometrics and Finance: 48 fractional works · 1.2% of its workEconomics and Econometrics: 40 fractional works · 1.0% of its workSmaller subfields together: 9 fractional works · 0.2% of its workArts and Humanities: 25 fractional works · 0.6% of its workHealth Sciences: 266 fractional works · 6.5% of its workMedicine: 206 fractional works · 5.1% of its workHealth Informatics: 39 fractional works · 1.0% of its workRadiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging: 30 fractional works · 0.7% of its workEpidemiology: 18 fractional works · 0.5% of its workPublic Health, Environmental and Occupational Health: 17 fractional works · 0.4% of its workPulmonary and Respiratory Medicine: 14 fractional works · 0.4% of its workSurgery: 12 fractional works · 0.3% of its workSmaller subfields together: 75 fractional works · 1.8% of its workHealth Professions: 51 fractional works · 1.3% of its workGeneral Health Professions: 20 fractional works · 0.5% of its workHealth Information Management: 16 fractional works · 0.4% of its workSmaller subfields together: 16 fractional works · 0.4% of its workNursing: 5 fractional works · 0.1% of its workDentistry: 3 fractional works · 0.1% of its workLife Sciences: 171 fractional works · 4.2% of its workBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology: 88 fractional works · 2.2% of its workMolecular Biology: 62 fractional works · 1.5% of its workGenetics: 10 fractional works · 0.2% of its workSmaller subfields together: 17 fractional works · 0.4% of its workNeuroscience: 53 fractional works · 1.3% of its workCognitive Neuroscience: 42 fractional works · 1.0% of its workSmaller subfields together: 11 fractional works · 0.3% of its workAgricultural and Biological Sciences: 20 fractional works · 0.5% of its workImmunology and Microbiology: 7 fractional works · 0.2% of its workPharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics: 2 fractional works · 0.1% of its workALL ITS WORKMicrosoft (UnitedStates)4,080fractional works, 2022-now
Life Sciences4%Physical Sciences74%Health Sciences7%Social Sciences15%

Each ring splits the one inside it: the four domains of science, their fields, their subfields. Size is fractional works in 2022-now. Every slice is a page; the interactive view zooms down to single topics and colours each by how much more of it this institution does than the world.

Its 4 domains and 26 fields, with their numbers
    1. Computer Science2,38458.4%
    2. Engineering3979.7%
    3. Physics and Astronomy751.8%
    4. Environmental Science451.1%
    5. Mathematics451.1%
    6. Materials Science391.0%
    7. Earth and Planetary Sciences240.6%
    8. Chemistry80.2%
    9. Energy30.1%
    10. Chemical Engineering30.1%
    1. Social Sciences2325.7%
    2. Decision Sciences1303.2%
    3. Business, Management and Accounting1112.7%
    4. Psychology751.8%
    5. Economics, Econometrics and Finance481.2%
    6. Arts and Humanities250.6%
    1. Medicine2065.1%
    2. Health Professions511.3%
    3. Nursing50.1%
    4. Dentistry30.1%
    5. Veterinary10.0%
    1. Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology882.2%
    2. Neuroscience531.3%
    3. Agricultural and Biological Sciences200.5%
    4. Immunology and Microbiology70.2%
    5. Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics20.1%
All of science, and how each field's share has moved since 1950: the Science domain explorer

What does Microsoft (United States) specialise in?

Where its research is concentrated relative to its size: Software takes 14.8× the share of its output that it takes of world research.

  1. SoftwareSubfield · 38.9 works15×
  2. Hardware and ArchitectureSubfield · 58.8 works13×
  3. Signal ProcessingSubfield · 142.8 works12×
  4. Artificial IntelligenceSubfield · 1,008.8 works10×
  5. Computer Vision and Pattern RecognitionSubfield · 424.9 works8.3×
  6. Health InformaticsSubfield · 39.1 works8.0×
  7. Computer ScienceField · 2,384.3 works7.5×
  8. Computer Networks and CommunicationsSubfield · 263.0 works7.2×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient, a volume reading rather than an impact one. It surfaces small, lopsided specialities.

Field profile

Location quotient across every field it publishes in: outside the ring is more than an institution of this size would be expected to publish, inside it is less.

Agricultural and Biological Sciences: 0.10× its world share, 20 worksAgricultural and Bio…Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology: 0.40× its world share, 88 worksBiochemistry, Geneti…Immunology and Microbiology: 0.18× its world share, 7 worksImmunology and Micro…Neuroscience: 0.80× its world share, 53 worksNeurosciencePharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics: 0.16× its world share, 2 worksPharmacology, Toxico…Chemical Engineering: 0.18× its world share, 3 worksChemical EngineeringChemistry: 0.12× its world share, 8 worksChemistryComputer Science: 7.51× its world share, 2,384 worksComputer ScienceEarth and Planetary Sciences: 0.37× its world share, 24 worksEarth and Planetary …Energy: 0.09× its world share, 3 worksEnergyEngineering: 0.65× its world share, 397 worksEngineeringEnvironmental Science: 0.22× its world share, 45 worksEnvironmental ScienceMaterials Science: 0.27× its world share, 39 worksMaterials ScienceMathematics: 0.93× its world share, 45 worksMathematicsPhysics and Astronomy: 0.83× its world share, 75 worksPhysics and AstronomyDentistry: 0.15× its world share, 3 worksDentistryHealth Professions: 0.48× its world share, 51 worksHealth ProfessionsMedicine: 0.26× its world share, 206 worksMedicineNursing: 0.25× its world share, 5 worksNursingVeterinary: 0.13× its world share, 1 worksVeterinaryArts and Humanities: 0.21× its world share, 25 worksArts and HumanitiesBusiness, Management and Accounting: 0.84× its world share, 111 worksBusiness, Management…Decision Sciences: 3.28× its world share, 130 worksDecision SciencesEconomics, Econometrics and Finance: 0.55× its world share, 48 worksEconomics, Econometr…Psychology: 0.60× its world share, 75 worksPsychologySocial Sciences: 0.45× its world share, 232 worksSocial Sciences1×world share
more than its size predictsabout as predictedless

Rings at 0.5×, 1× and 2×. Widest outward: Computer Science, 7.5×. Every wedge is a field page.

All 26 fields, with their numbers
  1. Computer Science7.51×2,384 works
  2. Decision Sciences3.28×130 works
  3. Mathematics0.93×45 works
  4. Business, Management and Accounting0.84×111 works
  5. Physics and Astronomy0.83×75 works
  6. Neuroscience0.80×53 works
  7. Engineering0.65×397 works
  8. Psychology0.60×75 works
  9. Economics, Econometrics and Finance0.55×48 works
  10. Health Professions0.48×51 works
  11. Social Sciences0.45×232 works
  12. Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology0.40×88 works
  13. Earth and Planetary Sciences0.37×24 works
  14. Materials Science0.27×39 works
  15. Medicine0.26×206 works
  16. Nursing0.25×5 works
  17. Environmental Science0.22×45 works
  18. Arts and Humanities0.21×25 works
  19. Immunology and Microbiology0.18×7 works
  20. Chemical Engineering0.18×3 works
  21. Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics0.16×2 works
  22. Dentistry0.15×3 works
  23. Veterinary0.13×1 works
  24. Chemistry0.12×8 works
  25. Agricultural and Biological Sciences0.10×20 works
  26. Energy0.09×3 works

Who are the top researchers at Microsoft (United States)?

Ranked on the quality score, Richard Szeliski, C. Lawrence Zitnick and Zhe Gan lead among researchers whose main affiliation is Microsoft (United States).

  1. 1 Richard Szeliski United States · #934 worldwide 58k citations · 310 works
  2. 2 C. Lawrence Zitnick United States · #3,235 worldwide 86k citations · 160 works
  3. 3 Zhe Gan United States · #5,905 worldwide 17k citations · 251 works
  4. 4 Srikanth Kandula United States · #6,502 worldwide 19k citations · 132 works
  5. 5 Wen-tau Yih United States · #10,602 worldwide 19k citations · 188 works
  6. 6 Meredith Ringel Morris United States · #11,828 worldwide 19k citations · 278 works
  7. 7 Paramvir Bahl United States · #11,928 worldwide 33k citations · 140 works
  8. 8 Susan Dumais United States · #12,508 worldwide 58k citations · 340 works
  9. 9 Ratul Mahajan United States · #14,269 worldwide 18k citations · 206 works
  10. 10 Nachiappan Nagappan United States · #16,330 worldwide 16k citations · 246 works
All ranked researchers at Microsoft (United States)

What are the most cited papers from Microsoft (United States)?

The most cited paper from Microsoft (United States) is "Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition" (Kaiming He, Xiangyu Zhang, Shaoqing Ren et al., 2016), with 229,585 citations. Next come "Faster R-CNN: Towards Real-Time Object Detection with Region Proposal Networks" (55,999) and "Microsoft COCO: Common Objects in Context" (43,802).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition Kaiming He, Xiangyu Zhang, Shaoqing Ren et al. Conference paperOpen access Jun 2016 229,585
2 Faster R-CNN: Towards Real-Time Object Detection with Region Proposal Networks Shaoqing Ren, Kaiming He, Ross Girshick et al. · IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence 6 Jun 2016 55,999
3 Microsoft COCO: Common Objects in Context Tsung-Yi Lin, Michael Maire, Serge Belongie et al. · Lecture notes in computer science Conference paperOpen access 2014 43,802
4 Swin Transformer: Hierarchical Vision Transformer using Shifted Windows Ze Liu, Yutong Lin, Yue Cao et al. · 2021 IEEE/CVF International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV) Conference paper Oct 2021 32,838
5 Fast R-CNN Ross Girshick Conference paper Dec 2015 28,569
All 59 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Which keywords describe research at Microsoft (United States)?

By fractional works in 2022-now, weighted toward what it does more of than the world: Deep Learning, Neural Networks, Machine Learning, Big Data, Information Retrieval, Text Classification, Topic Modeling and Convolutional Neural Networks.

▲ more of its work than of the world's◆ about the world's share▼ less than the world's

Size is fractional works in 2022-now in the topics tagged with each word; colour is the word's share of this institution's work against its share of the world's. The 40 words are chosen for being large and distinctive. Each links to the topic it comes from most.

All 40 words, with their numbers
  1. Deep Learning810▲ 5.8×75 topics
  2. Neural Networks573▲ 9.1×36 topics
  3. Machine Learning505▲ 3.7×86 topics
  4. Big Data267▲ 6.8×23 topics
  5. Information Retrieval205▲ 23×5 topics
  6. Convolutional Neural Networks193▲ 6.5×14 topics
  7. Text Classification182▲ 27×3 topics
  8. Topic Modeling178▲ 28×2 topics
  9. Machine Translation172▲ 25×2 topics
  10. Semantic Similarity171▲ 34×1 topic
  11. Word Representation171▲ 34×1 topic
  12. Artificial Intelligence163▲ 2.8×39 topics
  13. Distributed Systems152▲ 22×6 topics
  14. Corpus Linguistics138▲ 16×5 topics
  15. Neural Machine Translation136▲ 36×1 topic
  16. Statistical Machine Translation136▲ 36×1 topic
  17. Deep Neural Networks122▲ 24×3 topics
  18. Healthcare117▲ 2.5×24 topics
  19. Data Mining116▲ 3.9×18 topics
  20. Security112▲ 4.1×21 topics
  21. Anomaly Detection112▲ 9.5×5 topics
  22. Representation Learning107▲ 16×3 topics
  23. Unsupervised Learning103▲ 17×3 topics
  24. Cloud Computing99▲ 8.5×8 topics
  25. Semi-Supervised Learning92▲ 18×3 topics
  26. Virtualization82▲ 24×3 topics
  27. Resource Management81▲ 12×3 topics
  28. Surveillance80▲ 7.0×6 topics
  29. Semantic Reasoning78▲ 21×2 topics
  30. Visual Question Answering78▲ 21×2 topics
  31. IoT Security77▲ 6.2×3 topics
  32. Image Captioning77▲ 34×1 topic
  33. Multimodal Fusion77▲ 34×1 topic
  34. Meta-Learning73▲ 21×2 topics
  35. Convolutional Networks66▲ 12×3 topics
  36. Hidden Markov Models66▲ 27×3 topics
  37. Acoustic Modeling63▲ 41×1 topic
  38. Speaker Verification63▲ 41×1 topic
  39. Data Centers62▲ 26×1 topic
  40. MapReduce62▲ 26×1 topic

Which research topics does Microsoft (United States) publish most on?

By volume in 2022-now: Topic Modeling, Natural Language Processing Techniques, Multimodal Machine Learning Applications and Speech Recognition and Synthesis.

  1. 1 Topic Modeling Artificial Intelligence 171 works
  2. 2 Natural Language Processing Techniques Artificial Intelligence 136 works
  3. 3 Multimodal Machine Learning Applications Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition 77 works
  4. 4 Speech Recognition and Synthesis Artificial Intelligence 63 works
  5. 5 Cloud Computing and Resource Management Information Systems 62 works
  6. 6 Software System Performance and Reliability Computer Networks and Communications 49 works
  7. 7 Domain Adaptation and Few-Shot Learning Artificial Intelligence 48 works
  8. 8 Ethics and Social Impacts of AI Safety Research 42 works
  9. 9 Speech and Audio Processing Signal Processing 42 works
  10. 10 Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education Health Informatics 39 works

How open and international is its research?

Against the world's own shares: the tick on each track. Both are shares of its output, so they sit on one scale and can be read against each other as well as against the world.

openly available30.2%not open69.8%

World: 40% of research is openly available.

with international co-authors41.4%domestic only58.6%

World: 18% is written across borders.

How has Microsoft (United States)'s research output changed?

Output in 2022-2025 was 10% lower than in 2018-2021.

still counting1990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Microsoft (United States) as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.015% in 2024.

still counting0.020%0.040%0.060%Microsoft (United States)0.015% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Microsoft (United States) over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year, against all institutions in the same year.

still counting10%20%30%Microsoft (United States)18.7% in 2025all institutions10.0% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's output, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for its field and year. Peak 28.6% in 2012.

Other research institutions in Redmond

All research institutions in Redmond

Which institutions have research most like Microsoft (United States)'s?

Among the world's leading institutions, Alphabet (United States) has the research profile closest to Microsoft (United States)'s, with both strong in Computer Science.

  1. 1 Alphabet (United States)United States · Both strong in Computer Science, Decision Sciences 0.89 Compare
  2. 2 University of LuxembourgLuxembourg · Both strong in Computer Science, Decision Sciences 0.76 Compare
  3. 3 Carnegie Mellon UniversityUnited States · Both strong in Computer Science, Decision Sciences 0.74 Compare
  4. 4 Northeastern UniversityUnited States · Both strong in Computer Science, Decision Sciences 0.72 Compare
  5. 5 The University of Texas at DallasUnited States · Both strong in Computer Science, Decision Sciences 0.68 Compare

Similarity is the correlation of each side's location quotients across every field it publishes in, on a log scale: 1 is the same shape of research, 0 is unrelated. It ignores size. How it is measured.

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Microsoft (United States) on Science Explorer

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Its overall standing, then the domains, fields and subfields where Microsoft (United States) is in the world's top ten or its top 1%. Each has an image of its own.

Overall

Fields

Subfields

Research measures only: rankings here say nothing about teaching, admissions or student experience. Comparable institutions and collaboration partners have tabs of their own, above.

Questions people ask

What does Microsoft Research publish research on?

In research, Microsoft (United States) stands highest in Computer Science (#18 of 4,417 worldwide), Artificial Intelligence (#13 of 1,862 worldwide) and Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (#16 of 963 worldwide), 2022-now. Relative to its size it is most specialised in Software, Hardware and Architecture and Signal Processing (Software is 14.8× its share of world research).

Also asked as

  • What does Microsoft Research Asia publish research on?
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