At its annual THINK conference, IBM announced significant enhancements to its Watsonx platform, unveiling updates and new data and automation capabilities designed to make artificial intelligence (AI) more open, cost-effective and more flexible for businesses.
Among key updates, IBM has open sourced a family of its most advanced and high-performance Granite language and code models. Granite models, available under Apache 2.0 licenses on platforms like Hugging Face and GitHub, range from 3 billion to 34 billion parameters. These models, trained in 116 programming languages, excel at various tasks such as code generation, bug fixing, and application modernization.
IBM also launched InstructLab in collaboration with Red Hat. This innovative capability enables continuous development of core models through incremental contributions, similar to open source software development. InstructLab enables developers to create models tailored to their business needs, directly adding value to AI innovations.
In his keynote speech, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna highlighted the company’s commitment to open source AI innovation, saying: “We want to harness the power of open source to do with AI what has been done successfully with Linux and OpenShift. » Krishna emphasized that open innovation brings choice, transparency and collaboration to the AI landscape.
IBM has also introduced a new AI-powered tool, IBM Concert, which will be available starting June 2024. IBM Concert provides AI-driven generative insights into clients’ application portfolios, helping to identify, predict and resolve problems before they become serious. By integrating with existing systems and using AI to connect to data from various sources, it provides a comprehensive view of connected applications, making teams more efficient and proactive.
The THINK conference served as a platform for IBM to reveal updates to its Watsonx assistants. These include the upcoming Watsonx Code Assistant for enterprise Java applications and Watsonx Assistant for Z, intended to transform user interaction and knowledge transfer within systems. Additionally, enhancements to Watsonx Orchestrate will help customers create their own AI assistants.
IBM’s recent Global AI Adoption Index indicates that while 42% of companies enterprise-wide have implemented AI, 40% of those experimenting with AI have not. yet deployed their models. To overcome barriers such as skills gaps and data complexity, IBM’s new AI innovations aim to simplify and accelerate AI adoption.
Further strengthening its AI capabilities, IBM announced new AI-based generative data products. These include IBM Data Product Hub and Data Gate for Watsonx, both scheduled for release in June 2024. These products will help organizations manage and optimize complex data for AI workloads .
Additionally, IBM is expanding its NVIDIA GPU offerings to support AI and other mission-critical workloads. New GPU options include NVIDIA L40S and L4 Tensor Core GPUs, as well as support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux AI and OpenShift AI.
IBM’s THINK conference also highlighted the company’s collaborations with major industry players such as AWS, Adobe, Meta, Microsoft, Mistral AI, Palo Alto Networks, SAP, Salesforce and the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority . These partnerships aim to expand AI capabilities, provide model choice, and improve governance through the Watsonx platform.
Krishna concluded by reiterating IBM’s commitment to advancing AI through open source contributions and strategic partnerships, aiming to drive enterprise AI at scale and unlock significant economic benefits across all industries. sectors.
