IBM expands Watsonx capabilities with open source
Big Blue has announced several updates to its Watsonx platform, a year after it was first introduced, as the company accelerates plans to scale AI for enterprise – with a focus on open source.
As part of its annual THINK conference, IBM announced a range of new AI assistants including Watsonx Code Assistant for Enterprise Java applications, which will be available in October. Meanwhile, Watsonx Assistant for Z will be available next month to help users interact with the system faster – as will an expansion of Watsonx Code Assistant for Z Service with code explanation, to help customers understand and document applications through natural language.
IBM also released a family of IBM Granite models for open source. Available under Apache 2.0 licences on Hugging Face and GitHub, Granite code models range from 3 billion to 34 billion parameters, and will be suitable for tasks such as complex application modernisation, code generation, fixing bugs, explaining and documenting code, maintaining repositories, and more.
Additionally, IBM together with Red Hat also launched InstructLab, a project designed to democratise large language model development through an open-source community. According to IBM, developers will be able to build models specific to their business domains or industries with their own data.
That’s not all: introducing IBM Concert
The company previewed a new AI tool powered by Watsonx called IBM Concert. Generally available in June, IBM Concert aims to provide application owners with insights into how their applications work. According to IBM, Concert will be able to generate analyses, visualisations and recommendations. The company added potential use cases for Concert will include security risk management, compliance management and certificate management.
“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,” IBM CEO Arvind Krishna shared during his opening keynote at the company’s annual THINK conference.
“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.”
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