9th January 2014

IBM forms Watson Group to meet growing demand for cognitive innovations

Headquartered in New York City's "Silicon Alley", the new Watson Group formed by IBM will fuel innovative products and startups – introducing cloud solutions to accelerate research, visualise Big Data and enable analytics exploration.

IBM today announced it will establish the IBM Watson Group, a new business unit dedicated to the development and commercialisation of cloud-delivered cognitive innovations. The move signifies a strategic shift by IBM to accelerate into the marketplace a new class of software, services and apps that can "think", improve by learning, and discover answers and insights to complex questions from massive amounts of Big Data.

IBM will invest more than $1 billion into the Watson Group, focusing on research and development to bring cloud-delivered cognitive applications and services to market. This will include $100 million available for venture investments to support IBM's recently launched ecosystem of start-ups and businesses, which are building a new class of cognitive apps powered by Watson, in the IBM Watson Developers Cloud.

According to technology research firm Gartner, smart machines will be the most disruptive change ever brought about by information technology, and can make people more effective, empowering them to do "the impossible."

The IBM Watson Group will have a new headquarters at 51 Astor Place in New York City's "Silicon Alley" technology hub, leveraging the talents of 2,000 professionals, whose goal is to design, develop and accelerate the adoption of Watson cognitive technologies that transform industries and professions. The new group will tap subject matter experts from IBM's Research, Services, Software and Systems divisions, as well as industry experts who will identify markets that cognitive computing can disrupt and evolve, such as healthcare, financial services, retail, travel and telecommunications.

Nearly three years after its triumph on the TV show Jeopardy!, IBM has advanced Watson from a quiz game innovation into a commercial technology. Now delivered from the cloud and powering new consumer apps, Watson is 24 times faster and 90 percent smaller – IBM has shrunk Watson from the size of a master bedroom to three stacked pizza boxes.

Named after IBM founder Thomas J. Watson, the machine was developed in IBM’s Research labs. Using natural language processing and analytics, Watson handles information akin to how people think, representing a major shift in the ability to quickly analyse, understand and respond to Big Data. Watson’s ability to answer complex questions in natural language with speed, accuracy and confidence will transform decision making across a range of industries.

"Watson is one of the most significant innovations in IBM's 100 year history, and one that we want to share with the world," says IBM Senior Vice President Mike Rhodin (pictured below), who will lead the group. "These new cognitive computing innovations are designed to augment users’ knowledge – be it the researcher exploring genetic data to create new therapies, or a business executive who needs evidence-based insights to make a crucial decision."

Comments »