RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – IBM chair and CEO Arvind Krishna delivered quite a lengthy pep talk to Wall Street analysts on Wednesday about his huge bet on Artificial Intelligence. And in his opening remarks regarding earnings Krishna went out of his way to cite Raleigh-based Red Hat as being essential to past and ongoing efforts in the cloud while helping IBM advance its strategy in AI.
Of note: Krishna pointed to a rapid start for its recently launched “watsonx” AI suite and Red Hat’s new AI offerings.
Here is an excerpt of his remarks:
“AI is a transformative technology that has the potential to unlock tremendous business value. According to a recent McKinsey study, AI could add up to $4.4 trillion annually to the global economy. Our focus is on enterprise AI, designed to address these opportunities and solve business problems. The list of use cases is long and includes IT operations, code generation, improved automation, customer service, augmenting HR, predictive maintenance, financial forecasting, fraud detection, compliance monitoring, security, sales, risk management, and supply chain, among others.
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“AI is being infused into our software products. We are already building products that address specific enterprise use cases such as digital labor with Watson Orchestrate, customer service with Watson Assistant, and code generation with Watson Code Assistant. At our Think conference in May, we announced watsonx, our enterprise-ready AI and data platform to help clients and partners capitalize on the AI opportunity. Watsonx delivers the value of foundation models to the enterprise, enabling them to be more productive.
“We began to roll out watsonx a little over a week ago, and we are excited by the client response. To date, the platform has been shaped by more than 150 businesses across industries, from telco to banking. Businesses around the world are excited about tapping foundation models and machine learning in one place with their own data to accelerate generative AI workloads. For example, Samsung is exploring generative AI to deliver unprecedented innovation for clients.
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“Citi is pursuing the potential use of large language models for connecting controls to internal processes. NatWest is embedding watsonx into its chatbot to improve customer experience. And SAP is integrating IBM Watson AI into their solutions. IBM is also working with an expanding ecosystem of partners to co-create and innovate across industries and use cases, from space to sports, including work with NASA to build the first foundation model for analyzing geospatial data and Wimbledon, where watsonx was used to produce tennis commentary.
“Large language models are a step change in the evolution of AI, with more than 80% of enterprises exploring their use. We believe the opportunity for large language models for enterprises is immense given the existing amount of business data. This includes sensor data, chemistry data, materials data, geospatial data, code, and of course, speech. Because enterprise AI draws from both public and private data, it is more effectively trained when companies adopt a hybrid cloud approach.
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“Enterprise AI can also be based on multiple models, including public, private, and open source. Our watsonx platform takes into account this reality and is differentiated in a few important ways. For instance, instead of relying on a single model, watsonx enables companies to leverage the best models to meet their needs, whether they are open-source technologies, IBM’s models, or those co-created with us. Another fundamental aspect of watsonx is trust, ensuring transparency and bias-free models.
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“In addition, beyond offering companies the capability to tap into existing AI models, IBM empowers them to create their own. To help clients on this journey, we have over 20,000 data and AI consultants and recently launched our new Center of Excellence for generative AI, already staffed with more than 1,000 consultants with specialized generative AI expertise. The investments we are making in products and skills will help us to seize the AI opportunity. Our path is clear.
“In the same way we built a consulting practice around Red Hat’s hybrid cloud platform that is now measured in the billions of dollars, we will do the same with AI. And just like OpenShift is the technology platform at the heart of our hybrid cloud capabilities, watsonx will be the core technology platform for our AI capabilities. Watsonx is just one of many new technology innovations. Shortly after previewing watsonx at our Think conference, at the Red Hat Summit, we introduced OpenShift AI, which is a unified solution to train, serve, monitor, and manage the lifecycle of AI models and applications.”
For the complete transcript of the call as provided by Motley Fool, check it out online.
