IBM has announced the Watsonx platform at its annual Think conference, a comprehensive solution designed to empower businesses to scale and accelerate AI implementation with trusted data. The Watsonx platform comprises three product sets: Watsonx.ai, Watsonx.data, and Watsonx.governance.
Watsonx.ai is an AI development studio, planned for release in July 2023, that grants users access to IBM-curated foundation models and open-source models. It simplifies the AI lifecycle from data preparation to model development, deployment, and monitoring. A new collaboration between IBM and Hugging Face aims to bring the best of open-source AI models to the Watsonx platform.
Watsonx.data is a data store built on open lakehouse architecture, optimized for governed data and AI workloads. It is expected to be generally available in July 2023, providing a single point of entry for users to access their data while offering governance tools, automation, and integrations.
Watsonx.governance is an AI governance toolkit that enables trusted AI workflows. The toolkit aims to operationalize governance to mitigate the risks, time, and costs associated with manual processes and provide transparent and explainable outcomes.
IBM plans to infuse Watsonx.ai foundation models throughout its major software products, with applications in interacting and conversing with customers and employees, automating business and IT processes, protecting against threats, and tackling sustainability goals.
IBM also announced several upcoming offerings at Think 2023 to help drive AI adoption, including new GPU offeringson IBM Cloud, the IBM Consulting Center of Excellence for Generative AI, IBM Cloud Carbon Calculator, and a new study from the IBM Institute for Business Value.