IBM Introduces A New Business AI Data Platform

International Business Machines (IBM) launched on Tuesday an AI-based data platform Watsonx, to help enterprises adopt the technology in their businesses, according to Reuters. This announcement comes amid a rush to stay relevant in the artificial intelligence (AI) space and gain an advantage over rivals.

After IBM’s Watson program gained notoriety for winning the game show Jeopardy ten years ago, the introduction of a new AI platform is now being made.

The New York-based business had claimed at the time that Watson could “learn” and understand human language. However, Watson’s exorbitant price made it challenging for businesses to use.

The competition to incorporate AI into products has caught the attention of digital giants who are choosing to do business after the debut of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, a human-like chatbot.

Before the company’s annual Think conference, BM CEO Arvind Krishna told Reuters that “this time, the lower cost of implementing the large language AI models means the chances of success are high.”

“When something is 100 times cheaper, it really creates an attraction that is very, very different,” said Krishna.

“Creating the model has a high initial barrier, but once you’ve done that, adapting it for a hundred or thousand different tasks is very simple and can be done by a non-expert,” the author writes.

In the upcoming years, AI might eliminate some of IBM’s back-office positions. He referred to media reports stating that IBM is stopping its hiring process, saying, “That doesn’t mean the total employment decreases.”

“That makes it possible to invest significantly more in value-creating activities…Because we’re hiring into areas where there is a lot greater demand from our clients, we hired more individuals than we let go, he noted.

Furthermore, he said, “IBM was also embracing a more open ecosystem and partnering with open-source AI software development hub Hugging Face and others.”

Companies may use the Watsonx platform to train and deploy AI models, write code automatically from natural language, and employ a variety of huge language models created for various applications, such as chemical synthesis or climate change modeling, according to IBM.

1. New Watson products infused with foundation models and generative AI will be launched for code, AIOps, digital labor, security, and sustainability.

2. IBM also announced the Watsonx Platform, which will power next-generation foundation models for business.

3. Watson is a new platform for foundation models and generative AI, offering a studio, data store, and governance toolkit.

4. Using enterprise-grade AI, IBM Consulting has announced the opening of a Centre of Excellence for Generative AI with over 1000 AI specialists on staff.

To meet these demands, the IBM Watson platform offers three distinct product sets:

IBM Watsonx.ai is a next-generation enterprise studio that will enable AI developers to train, test, optimize, and deploy both conventional machine learning and new generative AI capabilities driven by foundation models through an open and user-friendly interface. It is anticipated to be publicly available in July 2023.  So, users will be able to access it.