IBM Watson a 100+ year-old company with a legacy to develop a wide range of hybrid (hardware + software) development experience, is a well-known name in every single household.! After recent turmoil in last 2 decades, IBM went through significant changes. After selling Watson Health Unit to a private equity firm Francisco Partners, Watson has shared the news that WatsonX will be their crown jewel in the AI offerings. From first impressions, AI will be an add-on to their current Watson Studio offering.

IBM’s WatsonX will be a train-tune-deploy platform and likely compete with rest of the end-to-end Auto-ML platforms. The platform includes a feature for AI-generated code, an AI governance toolkit, and a library of thousands of large-scale AI models, trained on language, geospatial data, IT events and code, according to a release.

History of IBM

• 1911 — IBM is founded as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company. It is created out of the merger of three companies: the Computing Scale Company, the Tabulating Machine Company, and the Time Recording Company.
• 1942 — Thomas Watson takes over the company and changes its name to International Business Machines, or IBM.
• 1928 — IBM invents the first public address system for schools. The morning announcement becomes a feature of American childhood.
• 1933 — IBM begins to produce electric typewriters, a distant precursor of the personal computer business they would someday create.
• 1935 — The Social Security Administration selects IBM to build its data management machines for the new Social Security program.
• 1943 — IBM invents the first completely electronic computing machine, the Vacuum Tube Multiplier.
• 1944 — In partnership with Harvard, IBM invents the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, or the “Mark I.” This is the first fully functional computer and is based on electromechanical switches.
• 1952 — Under the leadership of Thomas Watson Jr., IBM begins to grow its business computing business. It sells mainframe computers based on its vacuum tube design, and quickly becomes the dominant company in that market.
• 1956 — IBM invents its RAMAC line of products. These are the first machines to use magnetic data storage in the form of a series of spinning magnetic discs. This architecture would become the dominant model for data storage until the 2010s.
• 1957 — IBM invents FORTRAN, a computer coding language that would form the basis for most other modern coding languages.
• 1981 — IBM launches its first desktop computer aimed at consumers. The PC quickly becomes a model for modern computing, one which is copied by numerous competitors.
• 1991 — Facing a declining mainframe market and heavy competition in the personal computer market, IBM decides to focus on its business services division.
• 1996/1997 — Deep Blue, IBM’s artificial intelligence, plays world chess champion Garry Kasparov. Kasparov wins the first match, but loses the second — the first time a computer has ever beaten a world champion in a traditional match.
• 2005 — IBM sells its personal computing division to Lenovo, shifting its focus toward the business services model that still makes up the majority of the company’s profits today.
• 2005 — Partnership with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Molecular profiling institute, and the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center by building a state-of-the-art integrated information management system
• 2006 — IBM delivers an advanced speech-to-speech translation system to US forces in Iraq.
• 2008 — IBM Roadrunner built the world’s fastest ranked №1 ranking supercomputer as a project at Los Alamos National Library.
• 2011 — IBM’s supercomputer Watson won Jeopardy! against Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter.
• 2015 — IBM launched Watson Health to offer cloud-based access to the company’s Watson supercomputer for analyzing healthcare data.
• 2017 — IBM Watson Health implodes and leaves a $10 billion crator
• 2018 — IBM acquires Red Hat for $34 billion. This was one of the largest acquisitions till the date.
• 2020 — IBM announces splitting itself into 2 companies (a computing division and an artificial intelligence)
• 2022 — IBM announces that Watson Health to private equity firm Francisco Partners
• 2023 — IBM announces WatsonX

WatsonX

Watsonx is our upcoming enterprise-ready AI and data platform designed to multiply the impact of AI across your business. The platform comprises three powerful components: the watsonx.ai studio for new foundation models, generative AI and machine learning; the watsonx.data fit-for-purpose store for the flexibility of a data lake and the performance of a data warehouse; plus the watsonx.governance toolkit, to enable AI workflows that are built with responsibility, transparency and explainability.

WatsonX is supposed to

Create competitive advantage

Foundation models make it possible to fine tune AI to an enterprise’s unique data and domain knowledge with a specificity that was previously impossible.

Scale AI across businesses

Make use of all your data, wherever it resides. Tap into a hybrid cloud architecture that provides the data foundation for extending AI deep into your business.

Advance trustworthy AI

Improve data access, apply governance, cut costs, and get quality models into production faster.

WatsonX Capabilities

WatsonX.ai

Brings together AI builders.

Use open-source frameworks and tools for code-based, automated, and visual data science capabilities – all in a secure, trusted studio environment.

Tune foundation models for your business

Leverage foundation models and generative AI with minimal data, advanced prompt-tuning capabilities, full SDK and API libraries.

Manage the full AI lifecycle

Accelerate the full AI model lifecycle with all the tools and runtimes in one place to train, validate, tune and deploy AI models.

WatsonX.data

An open, hybrid and governed data store

Watsonx.data makes it possible for enterprises to scale analytics and AI, with a fit-for-purpose data store optimized for governed data and AI workloads, supported by querying, governance and open data formats to access and share data. With watsonx.data, you can connect to data in minutes, quickly get trusted insights and reduce your data warehouse costs. General availability of watsonx.data is expected in July.

Access all your data across hybrid-cloud

Access all data through a single point of entry with a shared metadata layer across clouds and on-premises environments.

Get started in minutes

Connect to storage and analytics environments in minutes and enhance trust in data with built-in governance, security, and automation.

Reduce the cost of your data warehouse by up to 50%¹ through workload optimization.

Optimize costly data warehouse workloads across multiple query engines and storage tiers, pairing the right workload with the right engine.

WatsonX.governance

Direct, manage, and monitor your organization’s AI activities

The more AI is embedded into daily workflows, the more you need proactive governance to drive responsible, ethical decisions across the business. Watsonx.governance employs software automation to strengthen your ability to mitigate risk, manage regulatory requirements and address ethical concerns without the excessive costs of switching your data science platform — even for models developed using third-party tools. General availability of watsonx.governance is expected in October

Operationalize AI governance

Accelerate model building at scale. Automate and consolidate multiple tools, applications and platforms while documenting the origin of datasets, models, associated metadata and pipelines.

Manage risk and reputation

Enable responsible, explainable, high-quality AI models, and automatically document model lineage and metadata. Monitor for fairness, bias and drift to detect the need for model retraining.

Support regulatory compliance

Use protections and validation to help enable models that are fair, transparent, and compliant. Automatically document model facts in support of audits.