06 March

IBM adds new API to quantum computing cloud service

IBM announced today that it was updating its Quantum Experience cloud with a new API that it hopes will increase the abilities of researchers and other interested parties to build more sophisticated applications with its experimental quantum computing system.

Last May, IBM opened up its 5 qubit computer in its NY state labs to the public in the form of a cloud service. The hope was that by providing interested parties with a working quantum computing model, it would help advance the technology, which remains very much in the preliminary stage of development.

At the time, the company released a simple programming language to write programs for the system that worked in a similar fashion to writing musical notes on a staff. Jerry Chow, manager of the experimental quantum computing group at IBM says that has worked extremely well to this point with 40,000 users signing up, generating 200,000 executions on the system’s processors and resulting in 15 externally generated research papers.

But participants have longed to interact with the system in more advanced ways, which led to the release of the API today on the IBM cloud platform. Having an API will help programmers who want to write scripts in their programming language of choice to deliver batches of experiments, rather than using the simple interactive language that IBM released last May. What’s more, according to IBM, it gives users the ability to build connections between IBM’s cloud-based quantum computer and more traditional computers without needing an extensive background in quantum physics to do it.

The idea is to provide the basis for higher end experimentation. “The API allows programmers to test more theories and lay the groundwork to scale up these larger systems. What we really want to do is work with the community to figure out what quantum computing looks like in the future when we have a larger number of qubits,” Chow explained.

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The company also announced that it’s offering a computer simulator for what a 20 qubit quantum computer could look like, and plans to release a Software Development Kit (SDK) to allow researchers to begin building simple quantum applications for this system.

Although we are years away from exploiting the full abilities of quantum computing, all of this is designed to advance the field to get to a point some time in the future when we have a 50-100 qubit system. Chow says this is believed to be the holy grail of quantum computing when we can really begin to take advantage of its power.

Quantum computers, unlike traditional computers, don’t work on a simple on or off switch. Instead qubits can be in multiple states of on/off or some combination. This could open up ways to solve problems that aren’t solvable with today’s computers, Chow explained.

As I wrote in May in the Quantum Experience launch story, there are many rivers to cross with this technology and there are vast obstacles ahead due to the nature of this type of computing:

Among the challenges here are that quantum computers take enormous cooling systems that in some cases are colder than outer space (we’re talking seriously cold). What’s more, they maintain so much information, none of which is necessarily static; keeping all of that information available long enough for meaningful analysis is an enormous task.

By offering free access to this type of cutting-edge computing, IBM is hoping to advance the field with the belief that everyone will benefit if that happens. Other companies working on quantum computing including Google, Microsoft, Intel and startups like D-Wave Systems.

06 March

IBM to offer quantum computing in the cloud

IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced today an industry-first initiative to build commercially available universal quantum computing systems. “IBM Q” quantum systems and services will be delivered via the IBM Cloud platform. While technologies that currently run on classical computers, such as Watson, can help find patterns and insights buried in vast amounts of existing data, quantum computers will deliver solutions to important problems where patterns cannot be seen because the data doesn’t exist and the possibilities that you need to explore to get to the answer are too enormous to ever be processed by classical computers.

IBM also announced today:

• The release of a new API (Application Program Interface) for the IBM Quantum Experience that enables developers and programmers to begin building interfaces between its existing five quantum bit (qubit) cloud-based quantum computer and classical computers, without needing a deep background in quantum physics.

• The release of an upgraded simulator on the IBM Quantum Experience that can model circuits with up to 20 qubits. In the first half of 2017, IBM plans to release a full SDK (Software Development Kit) on the IBM Quantum Experience for users to build simple quantum applications and software programs.

The IBM Quantum Experience enables anyone to connect to IBM’s quantum processor via the IBM Cloud, to run algorithms and experiments, work with the individual quantum bits, and explore tutorials and simulations around what might be possible with quantum computing.

“IBM has invested over decades to growing the field of quantum computing and we are committed to expanding access to quantum systems and their powerful capabilities for the science and business communities,” said Arvind Krishna, senior vice president of Hybrid Cloud and director for IBM Research. “Following Watson and blockchain, we believe that quantum computing will provide the next powerful set of services delivered via the IBM Cloud platform, and promises to be the next major technology that has the potential to drive a new era of innovation across industries.”

IBM intends to build IBM Q systems to expand the application domain of quantum computing. A key metric will be the power of a quantum computer expressed by the “Quantum Volume”, which includes the number of qubits, quality of quantum operations, qubit connectivity and parallelism. As a first step to increase Quantum Volume, IBM aims at constructing commercial IBM Q systems with ~50 qubits in the next few years to demonstrate capabilities beyond today’s classical systems, and plans to collaborate with key industry partners to develop applications that exploit the quantum speedup of the systems.

IBM Q systems will be designed to tackle problems that are currently seen as too complex and exponential in nature for classical computing systems to handle. One of the first and most promising applications for quantum computing will be in the area of chemistry. For a simple molecule like caffeine, the number of quantum states in molecules grows astoundingly fast – so fast that all the conventional computing memory scientists could ever build could not contain the problem.

IBM’s scientists have developed techniques to efficiently explore the simulation of chemistry problems on realistic hardware (https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.08213 and https://arxiv.org/abs/1612.02058) and experimental demonstrations of various molecules are in progress. In the future, the goal will be to scale to even more complex molecules and try to predict chemical properties with higher precision than possible with classical computers.

Future applications of quantum computing could include:

– Drug and Materials Discovery: Untangling the complexity of molecular and chemical interactions leading to the discovery of new medicines and materials;
– Supply Chain & Logistics: Finding the optimal path across global systems of systems for ultra-efficient logistics and supply chains, such as optimizing fleet operations for deliveries during the holiday season;
– Financial Services: Finding new ways to model financial data and isolating key global risk factors to make better investments;
– Artificial Intelligence: Making facets of artificial intelligence such as machine learning much more powerful when data sets can be too big such as searching images or video; or
– Cloud Security: Making cloud computing more secure by using the laws of quantum physics to enhance private data safety.

“Classical computers are extraordinarily powerful and will continue to advance and underpin everything we do in business and society. But there are many problems that will never be penetrated by a classical computer. To create knowledge from much greater depths of complexity, we need a quantum computer,” said Tom Rosamilia, senior vice president of IBM Systems. “We envision IBM Q systems working in concert with our portfolio of classical high-performance systems to address problems that are currently unsolvable, but hold tremendous untapped value.”

IBM’s roadmap to scale to practical quantum computers is based on a holistic approach to advancing all parts of the system. IBM will leverage its deep expertise in superconducting qubits, complex high performance system integration, and scalable nanofabrication processes from the semiconductor industry to help advance the quantum mechanical capabilities. Also, the developed software tools and environment will leverage IBM’s world-class mathematicians, computer scientists, and software and system engineers.

Growing the IBM Q Ecosystem

IBM believes that collaborating and engaging with developers, programmers and university partners will be essential to the development and evolution of IBM’s quantum computing systems.

Since its launch less than a year ago, about 40,000 users have run over 275,000 experiments on the IBM Quantum Experience. It has become an enablement tool for scientists in over 100 countries and, to date, 15 third-party research papers have been posted to arXiv with five published in leading journals based on experiments run on the Quantum Experience.

IBM has worked with academic institutions, such as MIT and the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo, to leverage the IBM Quantum Experience as an educational tool for students. In collaboration with the European Physical Society, IBM Research – Zurich recently hosted students for a full-day workshop to learn how to experiment with qubits using the IBM Quantum Experience.

“Unlocking the usefulness of quantum computing will require hands-on experience with real quantum computers,” said Isaac Chuang, professor of physics and professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT. “For the Fall 2016 semester of the MITx Quantum Information Science II course, we featured IBM’s Quantum Experience as part of the online curriculum for over 1,800 participants from around the world. They were able to run experiments on IBM’s quantum processor and test out for themselves quantum computing principles and theories they were learning.”

In addition to working with developers and universities, IBM has been engaging with industrial partners to explore the potential applications of quantum computers. Any organization interested in collaborating to explore quantum applications can apply for membership to the IBM Research Frontiers Institute, a consortium that develops and shares a portfolio of ground-breaking computing technologies and evaluates their business implications. Founding members of the Frontiers Institute include Samsung, JSR, Honda, Canon, Hitachi Metals and Nagase.

“We heavily invest in R&D and have a strong interest in how emerging technologies such as quantum computing will impact the future of manufacturing,” said Nobu Koshiba, President of JSR, a leading chemical and materials company in Japan. “Our pipelines of innovations range from synthetic rubbers for tires to semiconductor and display materials, along with products in the life sciences, energy and environmental sectors. By having exposure to how quantum computing can provide new computational capability to accelerate materials discovery, we believe this technology could have a lasting impact on our industry and specifically our ability to provide faster solutions to our customers.”

21 February

Indian companies need to modernise cloud infra to compete

Indian enterprises may have been late adopters of cloud technology but this is likely to change soon, said Dheeraj Pandey, founder of Nasdaq-listed enterprise cloud company Nutanix, which is targeting the domestic market aggressively.

In an interview to ET, Pandey said that Indian companies such as e-commerce firm Flipkart and ride-hailing service provider Ola will need to modernise their infrastructure to compete with global players such as Amazon

“One of the areas where you will see a lot of competition (in the cloud market) is the e-commerce sector,” Pandey said. “Industry players have to compete with Amazon and modernise. They don’t have the luxury of learning lessons for 20 years the way Amazon did. They will probably have to buy technology to compete in the market.”

According to a quarterly analysis by Synergy Research Group posted in October last year, Amazon Web Services held a 45% share of the worldwide public market for Infrastructure as a Service — greater than Microsoft, Google and IBM’s shares combined. It generated revenue of $12.22 billion in fiscal 2016 for Amazon, up from $7.88 billion in 2015.

Nutanix, which works on a hybrid cloud model that allows enterprises to buy infrastructure rather than rent it the way AWS does, is targeted at large enterprises that can predict their data centre usage estimate for longer periods, of three years for instance. “Just because you can rent an Uber doesn’t mean you will not want to buy a car,” said Pandey.

An enterprise largely makes these decisions on the basis of its predictable demands. Larger companies, which can predict their demands, eventually move from a rented public cloud to owning their own private data centres, Pandey said, citing file hosting company Dropbox as an example that migrated from AWS to its private data centre.

The public cloud, which allows companies to rent infrastructure and pay as per usage, will remain a preference for mid-market companies, Pandey said. But it will soon be competing with a hybrid cloud story, “especially if we do a good job of e-commerce,” he said.

20 February

Meet Watson, Rommety, And The New IBM

Cognitive computing. What’s it mean? It means business. And it means change. The business world is changing. And IBM is changing. It’s the future, but it’s also the present. It’s happening now. Google and Microsoft are chasing the same vision of a data-driven world that is so complex that artificial intelligence is the only way to make sense of it.

At IBM’s PartnerWorld conference last week, cognitive computing was all business. Of course, PartnerWorld is always about business and technology and getting onboard before all the best seats are taken. There’s always the proven versus the prediction.

When does cognitive computing clearly establish itself as the game changer? Has IBM done enough to convince its business partners to fundamentally change its ways and get the skills to be successful by ushering in a new era in business computing? IBM wrote the book on business computing. The question is will it write the next chapter. This is the storyline: All companies that are intent on winning in business have reached a point where they need to re-fashion their strategies. The IBM business partners can best help their existing customers and gain new business by helping organizations transition to the cognitive era.

“There will be winners and losers,” IBM’s president, CEO, and chairman Ginni Rometty told the gathering of business partners who have a large say in whether IBM leads the cognitive computing parade. Those partners have been quite successful in selling the old IBM business model of hardware and software sales. They need to be encouraged to pivot to a services oriented perspective. Rommety was on stage to turn some heads in that direction.

Past success built a solid foundation, she said, but continued success means taking a different route. In the recent past, Rommety recalled, discussions during PartnerWorld were about businesses transformation. The time for transformation has arrived. A “reordering” is taking place in the IT industry, she says, and there are “multiple shifts taking place.”

The core franchises of the partner channel–systems, software, and services–are giving way to new businesses models with substantial investments in cloud, big data analytics, and mobility, which Rommety refers to as “strategic imperatives.”

Those businesses are generating $33 billion in revenue–more than 40 percent of IBM’s revenue, she says–and are producing double-digit growth. That’s the kind of operational performance IBM likes to talk about rather than the disappointing, shrinking earnings that have hit Big Blue’s traditional business lines.

IBM president, CEO, and chairman Ginni Rometty

IBM’s strategic imperatives will coincide with a shift in IT architecture, Rommety said, while noting IBM has led architecture shifts in the past. Mainframe computing and the AS/400 were two examples she cited because of the strong and long-lasting franchises that were created around each. Acknowledging past glories was not a subject to dwell on, however.

Along with big investments in cloud, big data analytics, and mobility, Rommety promised a reinventing of the core franchises with continued investment and modernization of systems and software. The point was not belabored, but re-achieving legacy success is the desired result for cognitive computing.

The architectural decisions that are being made now “will probably determine the next couple decades,” she predicted.

Rommety identified three areas where architecture decisions will be significant in the long run: the data platform, the cognitive or AI platform, and the cloud platform.

The data platform, specifically named the Watson Data Platform, is being designed–a constant process–to handle structured and unstructured data. Rommety emphasizes the openness of the platform architecture because “the benefits are not just for those who use their own information, but also coming from other sources.” Built into the data platform are the capabilities to analyze and store the information. The use of APIs allows developers to use the data platform to build what’s needed.

For IT Jungle readers who are following DB2 for i data-centric programming discussions, the data platform makes sense.

When discussing the cognitive platform, Rommety put cognitive on a higher pedestal than AI to distinguish Watson from its competition.

“Not all AI is the same. Chapter one on AI is over. It’s now about serious business and not just consumer apps. We are talking about systems that are trained in a domain – education, healthcare, retail,” she says in a way that leads to a conclusion that early adopters will gain a substantial advantage.

“Surveys show clients are interested but don’t know where to start. The cognitive platform needs to have a range of cognitive services that’s more than AI. It includes natural language processing, machine learning, visual recognition, the capability to know and learn domains.

“It also needs transparency. Where did the data come from? Good source of data or not? To trust a cognitive platform, it needs to be transparent. A business model is also needed. Whatever insights come from the platform remain with the customer. You don’t want to train your competitors,” Rommety told the partners.

“We have been talking about becoming digital for some time and it remains a great opportunity for those who have yet to take that step. But digital is not the destination. When everyone gets to digital, who wins? Everyone has the same advantage. Cognitive will be the differentiator. Cognitive will impact every decision we make in five years.”

An uptick in adoptions of Watson-based cognitive solutions is clearly expected to boost IBM’s reputation for analytics.

The cloud platform is the delivery mechanism for IBM’s cognitive computing, so IBM’s 54 cloud data centers should be seeing some impressive growth if the partners are able to ramp up cognitive. In 2016, the partners contributed nearly one-third of the cloud services business. That includes global services and migrating on-premise software. The degree to which cognitive contributes to cloud growth will be closely monitored for improvement in 2017.

Before concluding her 25-minute address touting the future of IBM and what it means to the partners, she returned to the importance of expediency and Watson being ready to help businesses now with packaged solutions already in place and available in pieces that can be integrated with apps that organizations have already written and in place.

“As a cognitive system learns more, it is worth more. The longer it is in place, the more it is worth, IBM’s leader implored. “This is the future. The time is now.”

20 February

IBM’s Watson and Bluemix step up: Free cloud-based push to boost tech skills

Using its Watson AI platform and Bluemix cloud, IBM is aiming to develop the tech skills of millions of young Africans for free.

It’s won Jeopardy, produced a cookbook, and helps call-center agents with frontline support, but IBM’s cognitive computing platform Watson is about to embark on what could be its most socially-important venture yet: teaching tech skills to 25 million African youths.

In partnership with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), IBM has unveiled a $70m, five-year initiative it’s calling Digital-Nation Africa.

In doing so, it joins fellow tech giants like Google, SAP, and Microsoft, which are running large-scale digital literacy schemes on a continent facing both a massive skills shortage and an unemployment problem that Digital-Nation Africa will try to help address.

Digital-Nation Africa is based on IBM’s Bluemix cloud platform, and will include a range of tools for different audiences. At its most basic, it offers courses on elementary computer and web usage, which IBM’s Juan Napoli says will include advice on internet security and privacy.

For those with some digital skills or entrepreneurial ambitions, Digital-Nation Africa will offer coding classes, a mobile app suite and marketplace, and marketing materials for promoting apps.

Watson will be used for personalizing learning programs based on student progress and knowledge, to make recommendations on what parts of the course to take next. It will also gather anonymized data from the behavior of those who enroll on a Digital-Nation Africa course to identify key areas where skills and knowledge are lacking for future development of materials.

For entrepreneurs using the Digital-Nation Africa courses to develop apps and systems, Watson will recommend building blocks from Bluemix to improve their software, as well as suggesting potential market needs.

To hit the ambitious target of 25 million 15- to 34-year-olds learning through Digital-Nation Africa, Napoli says the firm has a network of 50 NGO, academic, and government partners it will use to reach both urban audiences and those in rural areas, and it will recruit more over the next five years.

Napoli says it is also building a network of volunteers, including IBM employees, who can teach digital literacy programs at the community level, where access to equipment and teachers has traditionally been limited.

18 February

IBM, VMware Partner on Hybrid Cloud Channel Offering

IBM will provide VMware-based cloud services to channel partners to boost their hybrid cloud offerings, the company announced Tuesday. IBM Business Partners will now be able to sell VMware Cloud Foundation and help clients extend existing VMware environments to the IBM Cloud.

The new integrated services allow IBM partners to provide a “one-stop shop” for migration of on-premise VMware platforms to the cloud. IBM says its VMware-based fully automated service for VMware Cloud Foundation is a market first.

“Enterprises need fast and easy ways to deploy and move workloads between private and public cloud environments,” said Zane Adam, VP of IBM Cloud. “By being the first to market with channel partners and VMware, IBM is enabling organizations to scale and create new business opportunities while making the most of their existing IT investments in a hybrid cloud environment.”

Clients and partners can automatically provision pre-configured VMware software-defined data center (SDDC) environments. The platform provides infrastructure flexibility by integrating VMware vSphere, vSAN, NSX, and SDDC Manager.

“IBM and VMware share a common goal of empowering organizations to quickly and easily extend their workloads to the cloud,” said Ajay Patel, senior vice president, Cloud Provider Software, VMware. “Through the IBM and VMware strategic partnership, customers can easily move and implement enterprise applications and disaster recovery solutions across a global network of cloud data centers.”

The announcement further builds on the strategic partnership announced by the companies a year ago to ease enterprise adoption of hybrid environments, and VMware Cloud Foundation, which the company introduced in August to sell a single platform cloud stack as a subscription service supported by IBM cloud.

VMware also partnered with Amazon to sell its data center automation software on the AWS cloud to enterprises in October. VMware has been shifting steadily toward a role of providing connections and management for multi-cloud environments, and CEO Pat Gelsinger discussed the impact of changing infrastructure technology on channel partners with the WHIR in June.

18 February

IBM launches $200m centre to double down on Watson and IoT

IBM has opened a $200m global headquarters for Watson Internet of Things in Munich, Germany.

The centre will be home to what IBM is calling “cognitive collaboratories” with Avnet, BMW, BNP Paribas, Capgemini and Tech Mahindra – where they will work with IBM to identify opportunities for using data from IoT sensors to train machine learning and other AI systems to make smarter decisions. The centre is part of a $3bn investment in IoT that IBM pledged in 2014.

Craig Smith, director of IoT for Avnet Technology Solutions, said that developing IoT systems is “immensely complex”, needing to combine cognitive computing, data analytics and cloud platforms, saying “it really is more than any one firm can put its arms around”.

SEE: IBM Watson: The smart person’s guide

IBM has about 1,000 IoT experts based at the Watson IoT centre, working with partner companies.

Together they will explore ways to use IoT data and cloud services to improve connected cars, to prevent disease, and to devise new financial services products and new managed services across industries ranging from agriculture to manufacturing.

As an example of how combining internet-connected devices and cloud services can help create new products and services, IBM revealed a new partnership with Visa, which they say will allow support for secure payments to be added to connected devices, without the need for dedicated infrastructure.

IoT devices will be able to be linked to the Visa Token Service, a security technology that replaces sensitive payment account information found on payment cards with a unique digital identifier, which will be available via IBM’s Watson IoT platform.

Jim McCarthy, executive vice president, for innovation and strategic partnerships with Visa, gave an example of how the service could be used to support on-demand billing, for instance, to pay by the mile when driving connected cars or by how much you drink when sipping from a connected cup.

Dr John Kelly is IBM’s senior VP of cognitive solutions and research, who helped develop the IBM Watson system that defeated two world champions at the quiz show Jeopardy in 2011.

Kelly said the centre would allow IBM and its partners to devise industry-specific cognitive services fueled by IoT data. Partnering with industry experts allows their expertise about specific verticals to be combined with IBM Watson IoT Platform’s cloud infrastructure and cognitive computing capabilities in areas such as speech and image recognition and signal processing, he added.

“We are doing it through an industry lens, we believe decades from now, before we have a general-purpose, all-knowing system, these systems must be trained in the domain you’re in,” he said.

The conference heard how the granular data being captured by IoT devices and sophisticated analytics at the backend is reshaping the way companies operate, such as the French railway operator SNCF. The rail operator is using sensors on overhead wires and tracks to do predictive maintenance on its 30,000 kilometres of railways, using the Watson IoT Platform to analyze the data. Meanwhile the aerospace manufacturer Airbus is creating detailed digital models, dubbed “digital twins”, of de-icing systems on plane wings to allow more effective approaches to designing and operating such systems.

The centre will also house an innovation hub for the European IoT standards organization EEBus, which will develop standards for connected home devices.

IBM also announced new products and services using its IBM Watson IoT platform’s cognitive capabilities:

Dutch unmanned aerial vehicle designer Aerialtronics making a drone that uses Watson’s Visual Recognition APIs to allow it to understand what’s being captured by its 360-degree camera, with potential uses in areas such as crowd safety, damage assessment and aviation inspection.
Ricoh is launching an IBM Watson-powered, voice controlled digital whiteboard, which can also do its best to transcribe and translate what a speaker is saying in real time.
Bosch will make its industrial Bosch IoT Suite available on IBM’s Bluemix and Watson IoT Platform.
IBM will offer free access to Watson IoT Platform via Bluemix to companies pitching products on the crowd-funding site Indiegogo that have been certified by Arrow Electronics.

17 February

IBM to revamp partnership with Indian varsities

Mumbai, February 16:

IBM will pick 50 universities in India this year in a bid to ensure that they impart curriculum suited to the changing needs of the technology industry. The US tech major is also ramping up research & development in India to customise and localise its flagship cognitive technology platform Watson.

Ginni Rometty, Chairman, President and CEO of IBM, told BusinessLine: “We have been investing in education in India for over two decades and are looking at how to revamp that for the future. We have partnerships with a lot of universities. This year we are looking at picking 50 universities on new curriculum.”

IBM is also looking at how to adapt its Pathways to Technology (Ptech — a programme launched in the US) to India. “This was developed for US schools so we are looking at how we can bring it to India. There are six other countries adopting this approach. You tell a school this is what the industry is looking for, so teach that curriculum,” Rometty said.

17 February

IBM Bets on Cognitive Computing

LAS VEGAS—IBM is putting all its chips into the cognitive computing pot at its PartnerWorld Leadership Conference here this week.

“Cognitive computing, and Watson in particular, are becoming the essence of transformation at IBM,” IBM CEO Ginni Rometty said during her keynote address here.

According to Rometty, IBM is betting the company on cognitive computing in the cloud, dedicating its 54 cloud data centers to support Bluemix—the dashboard for Watson’s cognitive computing capabilities and application programmer interfaces (APIs).

Rometty said the architectural changes made by Bluemix at IBM would trickle-down to influence everything downstream in computing.

“There are three areas affecting all businesses today—one is the need for new architectures like the open worldwide data platform in the cloud offered by Bluemix and Watson,” she said.

IBM CEO Ginni Rometty explains how IBM is putting all its chips into the Cognitive Computing pot at Las Vegas’ PartnerWorld Leadership Conference. SOURCE: IBM

“Secondly, artificial intelligence (AI) is adding meaning to both structured and unstructured data. And thirdly, transparent machine learning specifically targets each user’s domain resulting in insights never before uncovered,” Rometty said.

She predicted that one billion users from 45 countries in 20 industries would be using the Bluemix model by the end of 2017. By 2022, every decision made by consumers will be influenced by this model, she added.

And as the knowledge base of known valid solutions to everything from medical conditions to cybersecurity grows, the movers and the shakers writing those apps will become the world’s leading companies, Rometty predicted.

IBM claims it is already opening a $2 trillion market for using cognitive computing for decision support by 2025, and another $1.5 trillion market in increased productivity by 2020. SOURCE: IBM
Click here for larger image

IBM also announced a “Watson Build Challenge” to kick-off efforts to open the cognitive-market to all by challenging users to contribute IBM tested and verified apps on the IBM market place site, which previously had only IBM-written Watson apps.

The Watson Build Challenge will allow anyone, from the top 45 Fortune 50 companies already on-board to the smallest startups, to participate. The effort was modeled on an internal contest where all 380,000 IBM employees were asked to build a Watson app last year. The winners of that contest now have their apps for sale on the IBM Marketplace. Winners are expected to be announced by the end of this year.

For medical applications, the difference between machine learning, artificial intelligence and cognitive computing is, for example, the ability to detect a tumor from x-rays (machine learning), to the ability to detect cancer before the tumor grows by analyzing the dynamic flow of blood in vessels/capillaries to the ability to comparing the above data with that of every cured case of cancer from the relevant literature to accurately diagnosis and ultimately cure it. SOURCE: IBM
Click here for larger image

“We now have about 70 percent of our data center workloads running IBM APIs with about 30 percent of all Bluemix calls going to Watson,” said Dave Wilson, vice president of IBM cloud business partners and channel innovation, in an exclusive interview with EE Times. “BlueMix is being used for Watson and IoT apps of all sorts and sizes.”

Wilson echoed Rometty in confirming that IBM is putting all of its eggs into the cognitive basket. Not only is IBM selling BlueMix and its Watson links to its partners to develop their own apps, but almost 30 percent of its partners are selling BlueMix to their customers to run their built-for-purpose solutions, he said.

More = > http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1331363

07 February

Bring the Cloud together with IBM Bluemix

he next big step in the evolution of the IBM Cloud portfolio is here.

IBM Bluemix is integrating SoftLayer products and services into its vast catalog of infrastructure, platform, and application services.

The SoftLayer products, services, tools, systems, and support will become a cornerstone of a unified Bluemix cloud experience that delivers the performance, flexibility, and consistency of SoftLayer infrastructure alongside the extensive catalog of cloud resources that include IBM Watson services, development runtimes, containers, database services, and more.

And now that SoftLayer is integrated into the IBM Bluemix, one can only expect the best as it will bring all the cloud together in one place with developer-centric compute models – Bluemix makes it easier to ship powerful, high-quality software every day.

But what exactly is IBM SoftLayer, now Bluemix, and what does it do?

The Bluemix cloud platform is not just about creating new apps or migrating existing ones, on-prem or off-prem implementations, or offering IaaS and PaaS cloud services. It’s designed to bring all of these aspects together to help you solve your real, complex business problems in the cloud.

If your organization requires high performance computing, or you manage very large databases, Bluemix provides leading edge, dedicated architecture and ease of provisioning specifically designed to accommodate high input/output intensity for online gaming, mobile applications and digital marketing.

For larger organizations that need a correspondingly high level of infrastructure control, it provides the ability to customize hardware. It also features network control and control infrastructure via simple and intuitive application programming interfaces (APIs).

More => http://technology.mb.com.ph/2017/01/30/bring-the-cloud-together-with-ibm-bluemix/

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