IBM is a pioneering force in artificial intelligence (AI) breakthroughs and has consistently pushed the boundaries of AI technology, shaping the future of industries and transforming businesses. Recognized as a leader in the 2023 IDC Artificial Intelligence Services Marketscape, IBM’s AI achievements span decades, from the inception of the world’s first checkers-playing program to the development of cloud-based AI supercomputers. The impact of IBM’s AI is felt across various sectors, and its Watson suite has found applications in over 20 industries, serving more than 100 million users worldwide. This progress is fueled by dedicated teams at IBM Research, continuously propelling the frontiers of technology.
The tangible results of AI in business operations are already evident. It fortifies supply chains, safeguards crucial enterprise data against cyber threats, and enhances customer experiences across diverse sectors. However, the emergence of foundation models powering generative AI promises even greater achievements.
Ten notable AI developments at IBM that indicate how AI will change the future
- Watsonx: Watsonx, IBM’s advanced AI platform, offers self-service access to reliable data, enabling the collaborative creation of generative AI models and traditional machine learning systems. It comprises ai, watsonx.data, and watsonx.governance, providing tools for machine learning, data management, and generative AI capabilities. Watsonx streamlines the entire data and AI lifecycle, from data preparation to model deployment, with the potential to scale the impact of advanced AI across enterprises.
- Telecom Transformation: IBM recently partnered with Telecom Egypt, implementing IBM Cloud Pak for Watson AIOps to revolutionize network operations. IBM’s Robotic Process Automation (RPA), part of IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation, will assist Telecom Egypt in efficiently monitoring network performance. This automation replaces manual tasks like sending power signals to identify issues, which used to take up to 18 hours for data compilation and review.
- Center of Excellence for Generative AI: IBM Consulting established a Center of Excellence (CoE) dedicated to generative AI, complementing its global AI and Automation practice. With over 1,000 specialized consultants, the CoE drives productivity in various business processes, elevating customer experiences and fostering innovative models.
- Efficient AI Chip: Recently, IBM developed an AI chip boasting over twelve times the energy efficiency of conventional microchips for speech recognition. This advancement holds potential benefits for AI systems like ChatGPT and generative AI in content creation.
- Reskilling in Response to Generative AI: IBM’s CEO, Arvind Krishna, foresees AI primarily impacting white-collar, back-office jobs. Based on its study conducted among 3,000 C-level executives, IBM predicts that 40% of the global workforce will need to reskill within three years due to generative AI’s impact. Encouragingly, 87% of surveyed executives anticipate AI augmentation rather than displacement.
- IBM-Microsoft Collaboration: IBM Consulting’s Azure OpenAI Service has become available on the Azure Marketplace, offering developers and data scientists access to large language models (LLMs) for generative AI. “Businesses are looking for responsible ways to adopt and integrate multi-model generative AI solutions that augment the work their teams are doing in areas such as creative content and code creation, content summarization and search,” said Francesco Brenna, Global VP & Senior Partner, Microsoft Practice at IBM Consulting. “Our work with Microsoft is another example of IBM’s open ecosystem model designed to bring value to clients while helping them responsibly build and scale generative AI across their businesses.”
- Performance Intensive Computing: IBM recently launched Vela, a cloud-native supercomputer optimized for AI, which is in operation within the IBM Research community. Developed in partnership with NVIDIA, Vela is designed to scale easily and is deployable across IBM Cloud data centers. IBM is enhancing its AI efforts by providing increased access to GPU-based computing after the success of Vela. New GPU offerings, including NVIDIA GPUs on IBM Cloud, have been introduced to support training foundation models for enterprise needs and delivering these models through watsonx services. These GPUs can be utilized for various tasks like analytics, training, and serving large language models.
- Event Automation: IBM Event Automation is a solution empowering business and IT users to promptly detect real-time events, take action, and initiate automation. Featuring an intuitive interface for event distribution, discovery, and processing, IBM Event Automation offers a modular approach to expedite your event-driven progress. Across sectors like retail, banking, finance, travel, transportation, and healthcare, the solution enhances awareness of business activities, enabling heightened responsiveness to customers and adaptability amid market fluctuations.
- Enhanced Developer Productivity: IBM introduces watsonx Code Assistant for IBM Z, leveraging generative AI to expedite COBOL to Java translation, enhancing developer output. “By bringing generative AI capabilities through watsonx to new use cases, we plan to drive real progress for our clients,” said Kareem Yusuf, PhD, Senior Vice President, Product Management and Growth, IBM Software. “IBM is engineering watsonx Code Assistant for Z to take a targeted and optimized approach. It’s built to rapidly and accurately convert code optimized for IBM Z, accelerate time to market, and broaden the skills pool. This can help enhance applications and add new capabilities while preserving the performance, resiliency, and security inherent in IBM Z.”
- AI-Powered Fan Experience: IBM collaborated with the United States Tennis Association (USTA), introducing AI-generated spoken commentary on USOpen.org and the US Open app. AI Commentary enhances fan engagement by providing detailed audio narration and captions for highlight videos. Previously, IBM had introduced Generative AI commentary and hole-by-hole player predictions to enhance the digital experience at the Masters tournament.
