-- New services prevent vendor lock-in, signaling a new
chapter in how AI is adopted
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 12, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM Think --
IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a new chapter in the journey from
AI experimentation to wide-scale deployment and industry
transformation. IBM has made Watson portable across any cloud and
empowered businesses to prevent vendor lock-in and start deploying
AI wherever their data resides.
"Businesses have largely been limited to experimenting with AI
in siloes due to the limitations caused by cloud provider lock-in
of their data," said Rob Thomas,
General Manager, IBM Data and AI. "With most large organizations
storing data across hybrid cloud environments, they need the
freedom and choice to apply AI to their data wherever it is stored.
By breaking open that siloed infrastructure we can help businesses
accelerate their transformation through AI."
Watson, IBM's AI, is designed to help organizations put AI to
work to improve the performance of business. With a clear set of
applications, development tools, machine learning models, and
management services, Watson is helping organizations around the
world mine their data, predict outcomes, and automate time- and
resource-sensitive processes.
Today's announcements advance this mission by providing
businesses with a simpler, faster way to build, deploy and run AI
models and applications across any cloud. With these tools in
place, organizations can:
- Run IBM Watson services, including Watson Assistant and Watson
OpenScale, on any cloud. Through their integration with IBM Cloud
Private for Data (ICP for Data), Watson and Watson OpenScale can
now be run any environment – on premises, or on any private, public
or hybrid-multicloud – enabling businesses to apply AI to data
wherever it is hosted. Businesses will be able to infuse AI into
their apps, regardless of where they reside. The flexibility this
affords can remove one of the major obstacles to scaling AI, since
businesses can now leave data in secure or preferred environments
and take Watson to that data.
- Deploy AI software that automates business processes for
improved efficiencies and performance. New AI digital automation
software is designed to enable clients to discover patterns in
their business processes and then create AI-embedded programs to
automate certain workflows.
Though the use of AI continues to gain attention in business,
many organizations are still challenged to move projects forward.
According to an MIT Sloan report, 81 percent1 of
enterprises do not understand what data is required for AI, or how
to access it. And a recent Gartner study2 found that,
"data and analytics leaders continue to struggle with the
complexity, time to integration and cost implications of their data
integration projects, thereby inflating their schedules and
delivery costs with multiple cycles of revised project scope."
Still, the vast majority of enterprises, 83 percent, according
to the MIT Sloan report, agree that driving AI across the
enterprise is a strategic opportunity.
Qatar Development Bank has collaborated with IBM to establish
the IBM Innovation Hub Doha. One of the key technologies that the
Hub will deploy is IBM Cloud Private for Data. "The exciting thing
about IBM Cloud Private for Data is how quickly we will be able to
drive new innovations in FinTech and SportsTech using the
microservices within the platform," said Abdulaziz Al Khalifa, CEO, Qatar Development
Bank. "What makes it especially attractive is that it enables us to
develop and deploy new models quickly that brings the tools to the
data, rather than the other way around."
ICP for Data is IBM's open, cloud-native information
architecture for AI that comes integrated with advanced data
science, data engineering and application-building capabilities,
and is designed to help companies uncover previously unobtainable
insights from their data. Openness is at the core of ICP for Data,
for which Watson Studio is a key part. For example, based on
internal study, 85% of Watson users are using open source languages
and frameworks like Python, R, and TensorFlow, within the Watson
family.3
In its recent report, The Forrester Wave™ : Enterprise Insight
Platforms, Q1 2019, Forrester Research named ICP for Data a
"Leader." The report analyzes and reviews Enterprise Insight
Platforms that combine data management, analytics, and insight
application development tooling. In the study, Forrester noted:
"IBM has pre-integrated capabilities that allow clients to be
productive in a week or less. We were also impressed with its
ML-assisted data cataloging and governance tools. IBM's platform
uses Kubernetes to deploy on-premises or into the public
cloud."
Watson Comes to ICP for Data
At the heart of today's
announcements is a series of new Watson microservices built for ICP
for Data that are based on open source technologies and easily
scalable across cloud environments. Based on the open-source
Kubernetes technology, these new Watson microservices can be run on
IBM Cloud, and other public, hybrid or multi-cloud
environments.
The microservices are based on the following software
solutions:
- Watson OpenScale: IBM's open AI platform for managing multiple
instances of AI, no matter where they were developed – including
the ability to explain how AI decisions are being made in real
time, for greater transparency and compliance.
- Watson Assistant: IBM's AI tool for building conversational
interfaces into applications and devices. More advanced than a
traditional chatbot, Watson Assistant intelligently determines when
to search for a result, when to ask the user for clarification, and
when to offload the user to a human for personal assistance. In
addition, the Watson Assistant Discovery Extension enables
organizations to unlock hidden insights in unstructured data and
documents.
The new Watson services join Watson Studio and Watson Machine
Learning, among other services, which are currently available on
ICP for Data. Later this year, IBM will bring additional Watson
services to ICP for Data, including Watson Knowledge Studio and
Watson Natural Language Understanding.
In addition to this news, IBM today also announced that IBM
Watson Machine Learning is being extended with a new Accelerator
(Watson Machine Learning Accelerator) that enables high performance
GPU clustering on Power Systems and X86 systems. Combined with IBM
POWER9's industry-leading GPU memory bandwidth, the solution can
offer up to 10x faster4 machine learning training than
competitive solutions. You can read more about the benchmark
here.
IBM Business Automation Intelligence with Watson
In
addition to the release of these solutions, IBM announced a
forthcoming software capability, called IBM Business Automation
Intelligence with Watson. With this new software, business
leaders will be able to apply AI directly to applications, helping
to strengthen their workforce, from clerical to knowledge workers,
to intelligently automate work from the mundane to the complex. In
addition, the software will measure the level of impact and
effectiveness of AI on business outcomes.
IBM Business Automation Intelligence with Watson is
anticipated to be available later this year. In the meantime, for
more information, visit our early access program
IBM.biz/GoAutomate.
About IBM & Artificial Intelligence
A world
leader in AI for business, IBM has deployed Watson solutions in
thousands of engagements with clients across 20 industries and 80
countries. IBM's Watson solutions are widely used in industries,
including by 7 of the 10 largest automotive companies and 8 of the
10 largest oil and gas companies. Additionally, IBM Research is a
world leader in the science of AI. In 2018, IBM secured 1,600
AI-related patents. And, IBM recently revealed its leading-edge
Project Debater, created by IBM Research scientists.
Think 2019
At Think 2019, IBM will outline new
offerings, client engagements, partnerships, technology
breakthroughs and developer tools that underscore how IBM and
partners are changing the way the world works. For more
information, visit the IBM Think 2019 Newsroom:
https://newsroom.ibm.com/think. Follow the conference on Twitter at
#think2019 and @ibmlive, and go to
https://www.ibm.com/events/think/ for the full schedule and
live streaming agenda.
Forward-Looking and Cautionary Statements
Except for
the historical information and discussions contained herein,
statements contained in this release may constitute forward-looking
statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation
Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are based on the
company's current assumptions regarding future business and
financial performance. These statements involve a number of risks,
uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to
differ materially, including the following: a downturn in economic
environment and client spending budgets; the company's failure to
meet growth and productivity objectives; a failure of the company's
innovation initiatives; damage to the company's reputation; risks
from investing in growth opportunities; failure of the company's
intellectual property portfolio to prevent competitive offerings
and the failure of the company to obtain necessary licenses;
cybersecurity and data privacy considerations; fluctuations in
financial results, impact of local legal, economic, political and
health conditions; adverse effects from environmental matters, tax
matters and the company's pension plans; ineffective internal
controls; the company's use of accounting estimates; the company's
ability to attract and retain key employees and its reliance on
critical skills; impacts of relationships with critical suppliers;
product quality issues; impacts of business with government
clients; currency fluctuations and customer financing risks; impact
of changes in market liquidity conditions and customer credit risk
on receivables; reliance on third party distribution channels and
ecosystems; the company's ability to successfully manage
acquisitions, alliances and dispositions; risks from legal
proceedings; risk factors related to IBM securities; and other
risks, uncertainties and factors discussed in the company's Form
10-Qs, Form 10-K and in the company's other filings with the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or in materials
incorporated therein by reference. Any forward-looking statement in
this release speaks only as of the date on which it is made. The
company assumes no obligation to update or revise any
forward-looking statements.
Contact
Michael
Zimmerman
IBM Media Relations
(585) 698-9974
mrzimmerman@us.ibm.com
1 MIT Sloan Management Review, Reshaping Business
with Artificial Intelligence
2 Gartner: "Predicts 2019: Data Management Solutions,"
Dec. 6, 2018.
3 IBM internal study, Feb.
6, 2019.
4 IBM Systems Blog: New Watson Machine Learning
Accelerator for Power Systems
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