Tech giant IBM had announced advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI), hybrid cloud, and quantum computing at the company’s Think conference. The innovations highlight IBM’s role in helping its clients and partners accelerate their Digital Transformations, return to work smarter and build strategic ecosystems that can drive better business outcomes.
“We will look back on this year and last as the moment the world entered the digital century in full force,” said Arvind Krishna, Chairman and CEO, IBM. “In the same way that we electrified factories and machines in the past century, we will use hybrid cloud to infuse AI into software and systems in the 21st century. And one thing is certain: this is a future that must be built on a foundation of deep industry collaboration. No one understands this better than IBM, which is one of the reasons we are boosting investment in our partner ecosystem. Also at Think 2021, we unveiled our latest hybrid cloud and AI innovations – the very technologies that serve as the building blocks of a new IT architecture for business.”
Krishna said IBM is all-in on hybrid cloud and AI because it understands that businesses need a clear and credible path to modernising their mission-critical systems. “A new IBM study on the adoption of AI for business reveals that the imperative to embed AI into business processes became more urgent during the pandemic,” he said. “Of IT professionals surveyed, 43% said that their companies had accelerated their rollout of AI. And nearly half of global IT professionals surveyed said they evaluate AI providers in large part on their ability to automate processes. That is why IBM has invested heavily in building rich and powerful AI capabilities for business.”
Krishna added that: “We are already helping thousands of clients across every industry transform their businesses with the power of our hybrid cloud and AI platform.”
He explained that a breakthrough capability in Cloud Pak for data that uses AI to help customers get answers to distributed queries as much as eight times faster than previously and at nearly half the cost of other compared data warehouses. “Structured Query Language (AutoSQL) automates how customers access, integrate and manage data without ever having to move it, regardless of where the data resides or how it is stored, “ he said. “AutoSQL solves one of the most critical pain points customers are facing as they look to reduce the complexity of curating data for AI and eliminate the high cost of moving data, while also uncovering hidden insights to make more accurate AI-driven predictions.”
