IBM recently announced several new updates to its watsonx platform one year after its introduction, as well as upcoming data and automation capabilities designed to make artificial intelligence (AI) more open, cost effective, and flexible for businesses.
During his opening keynote at the company’s annual THINK conference, CEO Arvind Krishna shared the company’s plans to invest in, build and contribute to the open-source AI community as a core part of IBM’s strategy.
“We firmly believe in bringing open innovation to AI. We want to use the power of open source to do with AI what was successfully done with Linux and OpenShift,” said Arvind.
“Open means choice. Open means more eyes on the code, more minds on the problems, and more hands on the solutions. For any technology to gain velocity and become ubiquitous, you’ve got to balance three things: competition, innovation, and safety. Open source is a great way to achieve all three.”
Key announcements include:
- Granite Models Open-Sourced: IBM has released its advanced Granite models, ranging from 3B to 34B parameters, under Apache 2.0 licenses on Hugging Face and GitHub. These models excel in tasks like code generation and application modernization, supporting 116 programming languages.
- InstructLab Launch: In collaboration with Red Hat, IBM introduced InstructLab, promoting continuous development of base models with incremental contributions. This initiative aims to allow businesses to develop domain-specific AI models.
- New Watsonx Assistants: IBM unveiled new AI assistants, including watsonx Code Assistant for Enterprise Java Applications and watsonx Assistant for Z. These tools aim to help businesses overcome AI deployment barriers by addressing skills gaps and data complexity.
- Expanded NVIDIA GPU Offerings: IBM announced new GPU options, including NVIDIA L40S and L4 Tensor Core GPUs, to support AI and mission-critical workloads.
- Generative AI-Powered Automation: IBM introduced IBM Concert, an AI-driven tool to enhance IT environment management by predicting and solving issues before they arise.
- Ecosystem Partnerships: IBM continues to strengthen its ecosystem with partners like AWS, Adobe, Meta, Microsoft, Mistral AI, Palo Alto Networks, Salesforce, SAP, and SDAIA. These collaborations aim to integrate watsonx capabilities across various platforms and industries.
As IBM continues to push the boundaries of AI innovation, its commitment to open-source principles and strategic alliances positions it as a leader in the AI landscape. The advancements unveiled at THINK 2024 underscore IBM’s vision of making AI accessible, effective and transformative for organisations worldwide.
