IBM Unveils New Capabilities for Preserving Aging Infrastructure Using AI, 3D Modeling and Data Capture

IBM Maximo for Civil Infrastructure is designed to assist organizations like Sund and Baelt in better managing, monitoring and maintaining their infrastructure assets.

ARMONK, N.Y., Oct. 23, 2020 — IBM today announced new capabilities in IBM Maximo for Civil Infrastructure to help prolong the lifespan of aging bridges, tunnels, highways, and railways. New enhancements include the ability to deploy on Red Hat OpenShift for hybrid cloud environments, as well as new AI and 3D model annotation tools that can provide deep industry and task-specific insights to support engineers.

In the United States roughly $2 trillion in infrastructure repairs were unfunded in 2015, according to the 2017 American Society of Civil Engineers Infrastructure Report Card. And around the world, the prevalence of aging infrastructure threatens the continuity of day-to-day life for citizens worldwide. Owners, operators and engineers need to be able to improve their ability to decide where, when and how to address infrastructure issues with critical assets that must endure for generations.

IBM Maximo for Civil Infrastructure can consolidate numerous sources of data including maintenance and design details; near real-time IoT data generated from sensors; wearables; stationary cameras, drones and weather data from The Weather Company. This data can help operators assess the impact of damage such as cracks, rust and corrosion, as well as displacement vibrations and stress. By better managing and prioritizing infrastructure repair, organizations can work to reduce the need for time-intensive manual inspections and unnecessary costs.

“Tools like AI, predictive maintenance, drones and hybrid cloud will play an important role in meeting the challenge of rising infrastructure costs, and helping these vital structures endure for future generations,” said Bjarne Jørgensen, Executive Director, Asset Management at Sund and Baelt. “These solutions can help determine the exact need for maintenance in near real-time to assist organizations in extending the lifetime of structures.”

IBM Maximo for Civil Infrastructure allows civil engineers to make structures come alive using 3D modeling and AI visual recognition tools developed by IBM Research. Additional capabilities like Maximo Visual Inspection can make it easier to identify defects, their root-cause, and place them in the context of the greater structure. These tools that allow for more rapid assessments can be increasingly important for future engineers as skills availability may be a challenge.

“Infrastructure maintenance is a problem that’s being compounded from all sides: Bridges are getting older, payloads are getting larger, and the necessary preventive actions and maintenance are often postponed due to lack of funding,” Jørgensen added. “With Maximo for Civil Infrastructure, IBM is introducing a solution that addresses the problem from all sides, using IoT and AI technology to administer more proactive repairs, maintain invaluable institutional and engineering knowledge, and better prioritize resources.”

“Maximo for Civil Infrastructure was developed with input from some of the largest operators of infrastructure in the world so that IBM’s powerful technology across AI and IoT is carefully adapted to the unique needs of civil engineers,” said Joe Berti, VP of AI Applications at IBM. “With these tools we believe civil engineers will be able to innovate and improve the methods for monitoring, maintaining and preserving important structures around the world.”

IBM Maximo for Civil Infrastructure provides the following new capabilities, in addition to the core offerings available as part of the IBM Maximo Application Suite.

Maximo Application Suite licensing and Open Shift deployment: With a single license, customers can now deploy asset management, sensor integration, advanced data analytics including AI functionality and visual analytic capability. Capabilities including Monitor and Health can be deployed now on RedHat Open Shift, allowing customers to more quickly deploy, manage and scale their hybrid cloud deployments with ease.

Defect Management: A new user interface allows inspectors to record defect information, add multi-variable defect rankings, attach pictures and store defect history. Structural defects do not exist in isolation, they can affect everything they touch and the integrity of the overall structure. By comparing detected defects against work history, sensor data, weather and traffic data and more, AI can help engineers better identify root causes and patterns that indicate a defect may reoccur.

Improved 3D Visualization: Most serious defects are located within the structure and are not necessarily visible from the outside. New tools within the Maximo BIM viewer plugin allow users to add annotations to their standard 3D models, giving users access to a 3D representation of an asset, for example a pillar or beam, where all the defects have been annotated.

Asset Loader Improvements: While every piece of civil infrastructure is unique, many share common hierarchies of assets, and some organizations have hundreds or even thousands of similar structures that need to be defined in the asset management system. A new tool streamlines the import and export of an asset hierarchy, including a new UI to manage the process and select files.

IBM Maximo for Civil Infrastructure integrates 30 years of recognized industry-leading infrastructure asset management with best-in-class models from the world’s premier infrastructure firms. It helps operators and engineers address one of the world’s largest and most complex challenges — extending the lifespan of critical structures under frequently changing conditions. You can watch a video about Maximo for Civil Infrastructure here and read more about the solution here.

IBM and R3 Join Forces to Expand Blockchain Capabilities and Services across Hybrid Cloud

R3 announces Corda Enterprise will run on IBM LinuxONE;
IBM to launch Corda Enterprise Services Offerings

ARMONK, N.Y., Oct. 22, 2020 — IBM and R3, an enterprise software firm, today announced a new collaboration to formally expand choice for clients scaling blockchain technology while delivering their highest levels of performance, compliance and data privacy.

As part of the collaboration, R3 announced a new open beta program to bring R3’s enterprise blockchain platform, Corda Enterprise, to IBM LinuxONE next month across the hybrid cloud—both on-premises and the IBM Cloud—delivered via IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Services. The R3 on IBM LinuxONE beta program will open on November 2, 2020 and be available on IBM Cloud and on-premises. General availability (GA) is expected in Q1 2021.

Enterprises, especially those in regulated industries, are increasingly looking to build blockchain solutions with advanced security and data privacy features while addressing performance. For clients with highly sensitive data and workloads such as digital identity, digital assets, central bank digital currencies, tokens, payments information, or smart contracts being spread across hybrid cloud environments, IBM LinuxONE provides a highly secured platform certified to meet the highest level of security certification commercially available.1

IBM LinuxONE and IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Services provide customers with Confidential Computing capabilities, including ‘Keep Your Own Key’ workload isolation encryption capabilities backed by FIPS 140-2 Level 42 certification, tamper protection from privileged user access and encryption of all data at-rest and in-flight, making the IBM public cloud the industry’s most secure and open public cloud for business.

“In keeping with IBM’s efforts to bring choice to clients in the era of hybrid cloud, we support an open ecosystem of blockchain providers. Bringing R3 to IBM LinuxONE is another exciting example of leveraging our highly secured Confidential Computing capabilities to help our clients of all sizes, across any industry, protect their most sensitive data across the hybrid cloud,” said Ross Mauri, GM of IBM Z. “This announcement builds on the exciting work over the last several months to welcome new workloads to LinuxONE and IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Services in emerging areas like blockchain and digital asset custody – and we’re looking forward to taking this next step with R3 to build on this momentum with clients of all sizes from early stage startups to the largest global enterprises.”

“The infrastructure of financial markets will be rewritten in the next few years, with new technologies bringing a complete shift in how services are created and delivered. While underlying technologies emerge in several areas like blockchain—security, robustness and scalability of new solutions remain critical aspects of any new development. As one of the few custodians integrating public and permissioned blockchains within a universal blockchain platform, it’s an honor to be part of this alliance to work with R3 and IBM to bring new solutions to market designed to facilitate the institutional adoption of digital assets at scale.” Alessio Quaglini, CEO and Cofounder of Hex Trust, a joint IBM and R3 client.

As the hybrid cloud market opportunity for blockchain continues to grow, IBM Services is also expanding their existing Corda capabilities by establishing a R3 center of excellence. This is intended to provide services to IBM clients that have or plan to adopt R3 solutions, including trained and Corda-certified solution architects, strategy and design consultants, subject matter experts (SMEs) and a delivery pool that can quickly engage to help them advance their network and solution deployment.

“This center of excellence is being designed to innovate and incubate client-requested ideas and use cases leveraging IBM’s deep expertise in developing and standing up commercially available production grade blockchain networks,” said Jason Kelley, General Manager, IBM Blockchain Services. “We will use IBM methods, including design thinking, to focus efforts on developing interoperability solutions for disparate blockchain networks, digital assets and currencies and industry-focused use cases.”

As part of this effort, IBM plans to work with clients across industry ecosystems, in both buyer and supplier roles, across hybrid ecosystems, underpinned by the openness and security of IBM LinuxONE, with the goal of advancing a network of networks to a hybrid of hybrids.

IBM Services, along with infrastructure support on IBM LinuxONE for R3’s Corda Enterprise platform, will complement IBM’s existing blockchain services and offerings to bring even more choice to the market. IBM Blockchain Services provide organizations a range of opportunities to access valuable new channels, strategic partnerships and resources to accelerate growth.

“Corda Enterprise and IBM LinuxONE bring together IBM’s best security, efficiency and scalability features in blockchain and hybrid cloud. The result is assurance that customers can run their most sensitive workloads with transparency and flexibility,” said David E. Rutter, CEO of R3 “Blockchain is fast emerging as the technology of choice to drive digital transformation and R3 and IBM will provide access to the privacy and security inherent in blockchain technology underpinned by IBM LinuxONE. This combined with the deeply knowledgeable team within IBM Services’ new R3 center of excellence, can empower customers to level up their digital transformation drive.”

Burger King Brazil Selects IBM Services to Implement AI Strategy to Help Transform Human Resources Processes and Strengthen Employee Relationships

Burger King Brazil virtual assistant named TOP, enabled by IBM Watson, allows employees to access various HR services through their own WhatsApp

ARMONK, N.Y., Oct. 16, 2020 — IBM Services and Burger King Brazil have teamed up to create a new virtual assistant, based on IBM Watson Assistant, named TOP (Technology Orienting People) to help Burger King (BK) Brazil’s 16,000 employees, serving more than 800 restaurants, be more connected to each other and its leadership.

New research from the IBM Institute for Business Value indicates that surveyed companies outpacing others in profitability, revenue growth and innovation are also leading practitioners of what the report termed: HR 3.0 principles. HR 3.0 refers to the evolution of the human resources (HR) function, to become one that is more human-centric, better engaging remote employees, and cultivating a resilient workforce with the goal of providing transparency, diversity and inclusion.

Conducted in partnership with global independent industry analyst Josh Bersin, the global survey of more than 1,500 global HR executives in 20 countries and 15 industries, revealed that leading companies were “extremely confident” in the need to reinvent HR, and that HR executives from those surveyed, were eight times as likely as their counterparts at other companies to be driving innovation.

Before TOP, BK Brazil’s employees used a centralized command system to submit requests for vacations, documents such as payment statements, earnings reports, and other Human Resources related topics. All of these services are now available via a text conversation in natural language, through the employee’s own WhatsApp, with topics that are regularly updated. Today, the virtual assistant is already responsible for 50% of employees’ requests on HR issues, freeing up the team to focus on more strategic goals.

“TOP’s main objective is to be close to our employees and facilitate access to information. And technology plays a major role in enabling this connection, especially at a time when reliability, security and speed are so critical,” said Iuri Miranda, CEO, Burger King Brazil. “We know that the moment demands communication and an agile flow of information and if technology allows us this close contact with the people who are part of the team, we will make the most of it.”

The solution is also designed to enable Burger King Brazil to answer questions from employees and give the necessary guidance on the company’s strategy as it navigates the COVID-19 pandemic. In a joint effort with IBM, updates are made to the tool to help provide official updated content from the Ministry of Health. The tool also helped the company make content available for more than 30 responses to FAQs, such as guidance on PPE’s (personal protective equipment), risk groups and driving to use spaces, among others.

TOP recognizes each employee by their telephone number and registered ID in the company’s system to protect confidentiality and thus helps them to answer questions about vacations, earnings reports, among 60 other Human Resources matters. Today, this virtual assistant has become an agile tool in assisting company employees, accounting for 50% of calls. A hybrid and multicloud cloud architecture, accessing IBM Cloud in the BK Brazil IT environment, helps with the exchange of information to respond in near real time.

“Burger King Brazil is a great example of an organization on their journey to HR 3.0. The company has combined its journey of digital transformation with its people management strategy to be more connected and help respond more effectively to the needs of its team,” said Amy Wright, managing partner, Talent & Transformation, IBM Services. “People are the heart of any organization and with new AI-enabled digital tools, the HR 3.0 mindset can be critical to our ongoing development of a more productive and rewarding world of work.”

By placing technology as an ally for people, Burger King Brazil can establish the path to continue reinventing itself, growing and offering a relevant experience to employees in parallel with the transformation of the company.

IBM and ServiceNow Help Businesses Use AI to Automate IT and Reduce Costs and Risk

Expanded strategic partnership to combine Watson AIOps with ServiceNow IT Service Management and IT Operations Management Visibility to help businesses fix and prevent IT issues at scale

ARMONK, N.Y. and SANTA CLARA, Calif., Oct. 15, 2020 — IBM and ServiceNow today announced an expansion to their strategic partnership designed to help companies reduce operational risk and lower costs by applying AI to automate IT operations. Available later this year, a new joint solution will combine IBM’s AI-powered hybrid cloud software and professional services to ServiceNow’s intelligent workflow capabilities and market-leading IT service and operations management products.

The solution is engineered to help clients realize deeper, AI-driven insights from their data, create a baseline of a typical IT environment, and take succinct recommended actions on outlying behavior to help prevent and fix IT issues at scale. Together, IBM and ServiceNow can help companies free up valuable time and IT resources from maintenance activities, to focus on driving the transformation projects necessary to support the digital demands of their businesses.

“AI is one of the biggest forces driving change in the IT industry to the extent that every company is swiftly becoming an AI company,” said Arvind Krishna, Chief Executive Officer, IBM. “By partnering with ServiceNow and their market leading Now Platform, clients will be able to use AI to quickly mitigate unforeseen IT incident costs. Watson AIOps with ServiceNow’s Now Platform is a powerful new way for clients to use automation to transform their IT operations.”

“For every CEO, digital transformation has gone from opportunity to necessity,” said ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott. “As ServiceNow leads the workflow revolution, our partnership with IBM combines the intelligent automation capabilities of the Now Platform with the power of Watson AIOps. We are focused on driving a generational step improvement in productivity, innovation and growth. ServiceNow and IBM are helping customers meet the digital demands of 21st century business.”

Organizations are under pressure to deliver innovation and create great experiences for customers and employees, all while driving efficiencies and keeping costs and IT risks down. Yet in today’s technology-driven organization, even the smallest outages can cause massive economic impact for both lost revenue and reputation. This partnership will help customers address these challenges and help avoid unnecessary loss of revenue and reputation by automating old, manual IT processes and increasing IT productivity.

IBM and ServiceNow will initially focus on:

  • Joint Solution: IBM and ServiceNow will deliver a first of its kind joint IT solution that marries IBM Watson AIOps with ServiceNow’s intelligent workflow capabilities and market-leading ITSM and ITOM Visibility products to help customers prevent and fix IT issues at scale. Now, businesses that use ServiceNow ITSM can push historical incident data into the deep machine learning algorithms of Watson AIOps to create a baseline of their normal IT environment, while simultaneously having the ability to help them identify anomalies outside of that normal, which could take a human up to 60% longer to manually identify, according to initial results from specific Watson AIOps early adopter clients. The joint solution will position customers to enhance employee productivity, obtain greater visibility into their operational footprint and respond to incidents and issues faster.

Specific product capabilities will include:

    • ServiceNow ITSM allows IT to deliver scalable services on a single cloud platform estimated to increase productivity by 20%.
    • ServiceNow ITOM Visibility automatically delivers near real-time visibility from a native Configuration Management Database, into all resources and the true operational state of all business services.
    • IBM Watson AIOps uses AI to automate how enterprises detect, diagnose, and respond to, and remediate IT anomalies in real time. The solution is designed to help CIOs make more informed decisions when predicting and shaping future outcomes, focus resources on higher-value work and build more responsive and intelligent applications that can stay up and running longer. Using Watson AIOps, the average time to resolve incidents was reduced by 65 percent, according to one recent initial proof of concept project with a client.
  • Services: IBM is expanding its global ServiceNow business to include additional capabilities that provide advisory, implementation, and managed services on the Now Platform. Highly-skilled IBM practitioners will apply their expertise to facilitate rapid delivery of valuable insights and innovation to clients. IBM Services professionals also will introduce clients to intelligent workflows to help improve resiliency and reduce IT risk. ServiceNow is co-investing in training and certification of IBM employees and dedicated staff for customer success.

For example, using the IBM and ServiceNow joint solution, a bank will be able to obtain a full view of an incident, from start to finish. With recommendations and deep diagnosis from Watson AIOps, a service agent will be able to quickly understand the incident, without ever leaving the ServiceNow ITSM platform. Leveraging more than an agent’s own knowledge and research, Watson AIOps can provide anomaly detection along with automated recommendations from the historical deep analysis of prior incidents.  Using incident management tools from ServiceNow, actions and insights can be recorded for auditing purposes and for leveraging future insights. Watson AIOps can then push important context to tickets, discovered only via AI algorithms and baselining techniques, helping to make the data more useful to agents and retraining the AI over time.

“Businesses are facing increased pressures to match the digital pace of a cloud-first market in order to meet the demands of their customers,” said Stephen Elliot, program vice president, DevOps and Management Software, IDC. “The C- suite is transforming workflows to deliver insights and automation for more efficient customer engagement models and cost containment strategies for the business, while simplifying IT operations and increasing collaboration between IT and business stakeholders.”

Today’s news strengthens the partnership previously announced by IBM and ServiceNow to help enterprises simplify IT operations for multi-cloud environments.

Also today, IBM announced the formation of the AIOps Elite Team – a new no-charge advanced engagement team, dedicated to engineering AIOps in a client environment and building and refining AI models.

IBM Brings Artificial Intelligence At Scale To The Marketing And Media Industry

Expanding AI Advertising Suite to Strengthen Brand, Publisher and Consumer Value Exchange in a Privacy-Forward Future
Industry Leaders to Help Accelerate AI Adoption in Digital Ecosystem

NEW YORK, Oct. 5, 2020 — IBM today announced three new products to add to its growing suite of AI solutions for brand and publishers. The new capabilities are privacy-forward and designed to allow brands to reach consumers while considering user privacy. IBM intends to work with industry leaders, including Xandr/AT&T, Magnite, Nielsen, MediaMath, LiveRamp and Beeswax to help scale the use of AI across the industry. The announcement was made this morning at Advertising Week’s digital-first virtual event #AW2020.

“While the advertising industry strives to re-emerge strong from the global economic and societal issues we faced this year, it’s also deep in the throes of a major transformation with changes to mobile identity, certain elimination of third-party cookies, compliance and regulatory shifts and increased demand for trust and transparency,” said Bob Lord, SVP, Cognitive Applications and Blockchain, IBM.

He added: “We believe AI will be the ‘backbone’ of the new era as the industry prepares for the next generation of advertising. We’re using AI to help solve problems across the advertising industry, just like IBM has in countless other industries like Healthcare, Financial Services and Retail. Our work will be a step forward in our evolution to meet the advertising industry’s upheaval, and we are proud to help the advertising industry advance with the value of AI.”

The IBM Watson Advertising suite of solutions leverages AI to help clients make informed, data-based decisions. Expanding on recent additions to the suite, including Watson Advertising Accelerator, Watson Advertising Social Targeting with Influential and Watson Advertising Weather Targeting among others, the planned AI-enabled capabilities include:

  • Extensions for IBM Watson Advertising Accelerator: Enhanced video and OTT capabilities available in the coming months that are expected to leverage Watson Machine Learning, to help enable marketers to pivot video advertising creative based on individual user reaction.
  • IBM Watson Advertising Attribution: Beta Solution available in the coming months that leverages Watson Machine Learning, which allows marketers to accurately quantify the efficacy of their advertising spend while understanding intent and performance drivers.
  • IBM Watson Advertising Predictive Audiences: Solution leverages Watson Studio, to help enable marketers to progress beyond ‘look-alike’ to ‘do-alike’ segments in a privacy-forward format to reach consumers that exhibit similar behaviors.

A New Ecosystem to Accelerate AI Adoption and in Advertising

IBM plans to bring its toolset to industry leaders including Xandr/AT&T, Magnite, Nielsen, MediaMath, LiveRamp and Beeswax to help make it accessible across the advertising ecosystem. The companies will have an opportunity to drive the next generation of IBM advertising technologies to help reinstate trust in the marketplace.

IBM Watson can offer increased AI capabilities for businesses across language, automation and trust. The planned capabilities from IBM Watson Advertising will be designed to help infuse trust and transparency into the advertising ecosystem. IBM is negotiating definitive agreements with Xandr/AT&T and Magnite.

“We’re currently leveraging IBM’s AI through The Weather Channel, an approach that helps us use data to create meaningful and respectful experiences with consumers in the moments they need us most,” said Rand Harbert, Executive Vice President and Chief Agency, Sales & Marketing Officer, State Farm. “IBM has evolved from an advertising partner to an AI partner, enabling us to help our customers and prospective customers better prepare and respond during life events.”

“The advertising industry is undergoing rapid change and we’re infusing AI into our platform to better equip independent publishers in a sea of walled gardens,” said Tom Kershaw, CTO, Magnite. “We’re proud to stand with IBM, a company rooted in advanced technology, to deliver on the promise of an open web and solve the mounting challenges facing independent publishers.”

“Across WPP, we are committed to helping our clients navigate the disruptive trends that have been building for some time,” said John Dunleavy, Global President, Eightbar. “We’ve seen firsthand the important role AI can play in mitigating bias and making data useful so that every constituent – brands, content owners and most importantly consumers – can have authentic, relevant and meaningful interactions.”

“The opportunities for AI are immense–and we’re already seeing real value within the retail and consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry,” said Arun Ramaswamy, Chief Technology Officer, Global Consumer Business, Nielsen. “AI algorithms have vast potential to reinvigorate the brand-consumer trust dynamic by leveraging mathematical techniques that remove biases in the data consumers provide before they lead to improper results and interpretations. And within an open, cloud-based ecosystem, having the right, robust, high-quality data fueling AI is paramount to better understand and predict purchasing habits, and thereby inform marketing and advertising efforts.”

“AI technologies are transforming organizations and freeing up employees to do higher-value work,” said Victoria Petrock, Principal Analyst, Emerging Technology, Insider Intelligence. “For marketers and advertisers, AI is already disrupting core functions, including ad targeting, media buying, content creation and propensity modeling.”

“Data is the key to increasing engagement across platforms that deliver premium content,” said Grant Ries, SVP of Marketplaces & Emerging Business at LiveRamp. “We’re thrilled to connect our Marketplace with IBM AI to deliver actionable insights, at scale, across the ecosystem in order to help partners thrive in an undefined future. As the digital marketing industry evolves, it’s more essential than ever to rely on trusted partners to preserve the integrity of the open web.”

“AI is no longer an emerging technology, it’s here, now and the digital ecosystem must lean in to realize its full value beyond media buying and selling,” said David Cohen, CEO, IAB. “I am thrilled to see IBM, with its deep roots in artificial intelligence, take on a leadership role to develop CTV and attribution solutions for the next generation marketplace.”

“It’s in our DNA to empower our clients and partners with the tools to establish deep and trusted connections with consumers at scale,” said Joe Zawadzki, founder and CEO, MediaMath. “As inveterate champions of the power of math and science in marketing, we are eager to usher in a new era of enterprise applications into our industry and are excited to expand our partnership with IBM to introduce their world-class capabilities to an open web that keenly needs them.”

“We’re thrilled to help power IBM Watson Advertising with our Bidder-as-a-Service™ platform,” said Ari Paparo, Co-Founder & CEO, Beeswax. “It’s exciting to help IBM Watson unlock AI-driven, predictive dynamic creative for more relevant advertising that gets smarter over time.”

“As a company that has been integrating IBM Watson into our platform for over five years, our team at Influential has seen, firsthand, how crucial AI is in identifying the right influencers, targeting audiences, and delivering content at scale,” said Ryan Detert, Chief Executive Officer, Influential.

Statements regarding IBM’s future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice and represent goals and objectives only.

BCI in Collaboration with IBM Advances Blockchain based Financial Services with Electronic Letter of Guarantee for Clients in Thailand

Access to Services Now Available to Business of All Sizes

Bangkok, Thailand – 30 September 2020: IBM (NYSE: IBM) and the Blockchain Community Initiative (BCI) jointly announced that its electronic letter of guarantee (eLG) platform and network has successfully advanced and is now extending the scope and reach of its services and network to businesses of all sizes.

The advanced capabilities on the BCI blockchain platform include equipping its network with true hybrid cloud and multi-vendor capabilities, disaster recovery and multi-region high availability.

Commercial banks in Thailand manually issue guarantee letters worth billions of dollars to businesses annually as part of their guarantee process in case a buyer defaults. The negotiation between buyer, seller and bank can take up to nine days and the risk of forgery of paper documents could leave the seller without recourse.

Through Thailand Blockchain Community Initiative, now known as BCI (Thailand) Co., Ltd., 22 banks and 15 companies have joined the blockchain-based platform to support payment obligations, for enterprise auctions and other domestic trading procedures. The platform went live in late 2019 and currently handles an approximate value of US$ 300,000,000 in guarantee letters. It has proven to reduce letter of guarantee issuance time to less than a day. Some member companies report seeing a 200% reduction in transaction costs. eLG is designed to reduce the potential for errors and risk of fraud for all parties involved.

“The blockchain platform is significant to BCI as it is aligned to our roadmap of using a hybrid deployment model to grow to overseas markets in the future. The Letter of Guarantee is just the first service offering from BCI. More products will be added in the near future. The platform also sets a strong foundation for BCI to scale and expand our services offerings on top of bringing speed and efficiency to more companies,” said Silawat Santivisat, Chairman of The Board, BCI (Thailand) Co., Ltd. “Blockchain is the key enabler for multi-industry connectivity platforms.  Blockchain allows businesses to rethink processes and inefficiencies, and with the right partners and technology platforms providing scalability, security and multi-cloud capabilities, these networks can grow efficiently across environments and regions.”

“The major upgrade from Hyperledger Fabric v1.1 to Hyperledger Fabric v1.4 LTS posed huge business and technical challenges, with months of preparation and tremendous effort from all 15 participating entities working closely together on improving the business processes, security, governance, compliance and technical resources. The IBM team’s strong commitment and outstanding support to BCI made this upgrade to global best practices a great success with zero downtime,” said Siriwat Keatcharoensin, President of BCI (Thailand) Co., Ltd. “With IBM Blockchain as the technology foundation, and with the innovation milestone we achieved today, we are ready to welcome new members to our eLG platform and collectively bring maximum efficiency to business transactions in Thailand.”

“IBM is proud to support BCI and its growing consortium in bringing the use of blockchain technology on the highly-secured IBM Cloud environment to address one of Thailand’s key pain points in executing financial transactions,” said  Patama Chantaruck as Vice President for Indochina Expansion and Managing Director of IBM Thailand. “First developed by members of the Thai banking community with IBM Garage for Cloud in 2016, the platform has incorporated best practices in bringing both bank and non-bank ecosystem players together quickly and effectively.”

GEODIS Uses IBM Sterling Order Management to Help Retailers Accelerate Omnichannel Customer Experience Capabilities with New e-Commerce Fulfillment Service

Global, Third-Party Logistics Provider Integrates Store and Online Fulfillment with Warehousing and Transportation Services to Help Optimize Demand Management

ARMONK, N.Y., September 21, 2020 – IBM today announced GEODIS has launched a new service that is designed to help retailers and consumer brands accelerate their omnichannel customer experience capabilities with a new e-commerce fulfillment service. The global, third-party logistics provider is integrating store and online fulfillment with warehousing and transportation services powered by IBM Sterling Order Management to help optimize demand management. The enhanced e-fulfillment network and improved proximity to online shoppers will help retailers evolve their supply chain resilience by simplifying unified order management orchestration capabilities across digital and physical store environments to grow sales.

Many retail and consumer brands face three common issues: not having a real-time, global view of inventory across fulfillment networks, limited fulfillment channel capabilities and not having full control over fulfillment processes to better manage operations that are affected by inventory levels. GEODIS’ e-Logistics fulfillment service is designed to help brands reduce costs and quickly reach e-commerce marketplaces and achieve success with shortened transit time by selecting the most effective fulfillment option to optimize delivery of customer orders. The new service enabled by IBM Sterling Order Management – a leading distributed order management system for retail as recognized by industry analyst, IHL Group – can provide a holistic view of available-to-promise inventory. This helps brands make more informed decisions on order sourcing and omnichannel execution, thereby improving the customer experience.

As retailers and consumer product brands constantly seek ways to delight their customer and react at speed to consumer behavior there’s a growing emphasis on selling directly to customers through a company’s own websites or online marketplaces. Compounding this challenge is many organizations frequently have inventory information in data silos rather than a holistic view, which can lead to inventory management issues that can result in lost sales opportunities from stock outs and markdowns.

“We’re seeing a growing trend of leading brands using stores as e-fulfillment and customer experience centers, bringing an incremental level of business complexity coupled with the need to master online sales. Without effective order management, order orchestration, and logistics management, efforts to sell across different channels – from brick-and-mortar stores to mobile phones – are bound to disappoint consumers,” said Ashwani Nath, Vice President & Global Head of e-Channel Solutions, GEODIS. “Brands seeking to accelerate their e-commerce operations can increase their e-commerce capabilities by making distribution networks more agile to better handle demand variability with the help of Sterling Order Management to confront formidable logistical hurdles.”

With the consumer market already reportedly experiencing much higher levels of tension due to the many ways COVID-19 has impacted the customer experience, the business risks associated with deficient customer fulfillment experience continues to grow. According to Forrester Research’s US Customer Experience Index 2020 report, the consequence of even small infractions can undercut efforts a brand makes to recapture customers once the consumer spending freeze thaws. For example, when customers are disappointed the report cited only 18 percent will keep their business with the brand, while just 18 percent will increase their spending with the brand, and a mere 15 percent will recommend the brand to their friends and family members.

“The consumer behavior associated with contactless commerce and the desire for fulfillment flexibility has challenged retailers and brand owners to accelerate their omnichannel capabilities, which is driving them to align their commerce and fulfillment platforms in order to meet evolving consumer demands,” said Jeanette Barlow, VP of Offering Management – IBM Sterling. “As we continue to emerge with new insights, we’re seeing leading brands modernize their critical supply chain applications such as Order Management to gain deeper analytics that help improve business performance and put an emphasis on managing their inventory at a holistic level – no longer siloed by channel or location. We think this trend will continue to grow as companies innovate and increase their competitiveness by building intelligent supply chains that are tuned to the demands of the specific needs of each business to optimize performance.”

About GEODIS

GEODIS is a top-rated, global supply chain operator recognized for its commitment to helping clients overcome their logistical constraints. GEODIS’ growth-focused offerings (Supply Chain Optimization, Freight Forwarding, Contract Logistics, Distribution & Express, and Road Transport) coupled with the company’s truly global reach thanks to a direct presence in 67 countries, and a global network spanning 120 countries, translates in top business rankings, #1 in France, #6 in Europe and #7 worldwide. In 2019, GEODIS accounted for over 41,000 employees globally and generated €8.2 billion in sales. Learn more at www.geodis.com

Mayflower Autonomous Ship Launches

– Robot research ship from ProMare and IBM takes to sea
– New Mission Portal features Artie – a seven-armed octopus chatbot

PLYMOUTH, England, Sept. 15, 2020 — Ocean research non-profit ProMare and IBM have announced the completion and launch of the Mayflower Autonomous Ship (MAS) – an AI and solar powered marine research vessel which will traverse oceans gathering vital environmental data.

Following two years of design, construction and training of its AI models, the new fully-autonomous trimaran was today lifted into the waters off the coast of Plymouth, England ahead of its official launch tomorrow.

Designed to provide a safe, flexible and cost-effective way of gathering data about the ocean, the new-generation Mayflower promises to transform oceanography by working in tandem with scientists and other autonomous vessels to help understand critical issues such as global warming, micro-plastic pollution and marine mammal conservation. ProMare is co-ordinating the scientific studies working with IBM Research and a number of leading scientific organizations.

MAS features an AI Captain built by ProMare and IBM developers which gives MAS the ability to sense, think and make decisions at sea with no human captain or onboard crew. The new class of marine AI is underpinned by IBM’s latest advanced edge computing systems, automation software, computer vision technology and Red Hat Open Source software.

“Able to scan the horizon for possible hazards, make informed decisions and change its course based on a fusion of live data, the Mayflower Autonomous Ship has more in common with a modern bank than its 17th century namesake,” said Andy Stanford-Clark, Chief Technology Officer, IBM UK & Ireland. “With its ability to keep running in the face of the most challenging conditions, this small ship is a microcosm for every aspiring 21st century business.”

To enable followers around the world to stay updated with MAS as it undertakes its various missions, IBM and ProMare have today launched a new interactive web portal. Built by IBM iX, the business design arm of IBM Services, the MAS400 portal is designed to provide real-time updates about the ship’s location, environmental conditions and data from its various research projects. Live weather data will be streamed from The Weather Company, as MAS is receiving forecast data and insight from the new IBM Weather Operations Center.

The portal even features a seven-armed, stowaway octopus chatbot called Artie, who claims to be hitching a ride on the ship. Powered by IBM Watson Assistant technology and created in partnership with European start-up Chatbotbay, Artie has been trained to provide information about MAS and its adventures in a lively, and accessible format.

“MAS400.com is one of the most advanced ocean mission web portals ever built,” says Fredrik Soreide, Scientific Director of the Mayflower Autonomous Ship project and Board Member of ProMare. “Protecting the ocean depends on our ability to engage the public in important matters affecting its health. This MAS400 portal is designed to do exactly that and tell people where the ship is, what speed it’s travelling at, what conditions it’s operating in and what science we are conducting. Users can even help Artie the Octopus fish out surgical masks, cigarette butts and other increasingly common forms of ocean litter from a virtual ocean of facts and data.”

MAS will spend the next six months in sea trials and undertake various research missions and voyages before attempting to cross the Atlantic in Spring 2021. MAS’s transatlantic voyage will be based on a similar route and pioneering spirit to the 1620 Mayflower which made the same crossing 400 years ago.

IBM Joins World Business Council for Sustainable Development to Help Accelerate the Transition to a Sustainable World

GENEVA, Sept. 11, 2020 — IBM today joined over 200 forward-thinking companies as the newest member of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).  The relationship further extends IBM’s strong heritage in sustainable leadership and development in managing waste, conserving energy, using renewable electricity and reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Technical and industry professionals across IBM’s business units and research division develop new ways of helping to solve difficult environmental problems based upon data and today’s exponential information technologies — including AI, automation, analytics, IoT and blockchain, which also have the power to change business models, reinvent processes, and reimagine work.

“IBM is proud of our long-standing record for sustainable practices in developing our products and managing our company in ways that conserve resources and limit our impact on the environment,” said Mark Foster, senior vice president, IBM Services. “We have a shared vision with WCSBD that purpose-led companies can be the driving force for societal innovation that addresses the world’s most pressing sustainability issues at scale, from feeding the world’s growing population to renewable energy production.”

Connecting with WBCSD’s network of forward-thinking businesses across a variety of sectors can enable IBM to continue to enhance and implement its sustainability ambitions in collaboration with like-minded partners. IBM’s long-standing commitment to “good tech” reflects the company’s most deeply held values as well as its pledge to put responsible stewardship in the digital age at the core of its business strategy. IBM believes that sustainability is not only crucial for the well-being of people and the environment but can also power innovation and prosperity.

IBM is also aiming to help address the pressing global issue of climate change through its Future of Climate initiatives driven by IBM Research. These efforts focus on researching and developing actionable solutions to the global climate problem, including accelerated material discovery for carbon capture and conversion, optimizing carbon footprint of hybrid cloud and supply chains, as well as regional modeling to understand and prepare for the impact of climate change.

WBCSD has initiated a special COVID-19 response program for members to leverage their expertise to address the crisis and support the critical role of business. IBM plans to leverage its experience working with clients and partners like Yara, Shell and Equigy to help deliver cost efficiencies, speed to delivery, sustainability and new ways of working to keep workforces safe. IBM intends to participate on WBCSD’s strategic work such as the:

  • Food & Nature program to build data driven and AI powered future farms leveraging weather, IoT, remote sensing data to help enhance farm yield and produce better quality sustainably grown crops, making farmers more resilient while restoring natural resources to avoid climate shocks.
  • Climate & Energy program to help enable the scaling of distributed and centralize renewable sources through AI, advanced weather forecasting and asset resiliency capabilities, creating sustainable energy supply through electrification.

WBCSD President and CEO Peter Bakker said, “WBCSD is pleased to welcome IBM to our network of forward-thinking companies. From artificial intelligence to quantum computing, technology is a critical enabler of the systems transformation that we need to ensure a stable and healthy world for all. We congratulate IBM for taking an active role in shaping the future for the benefit of people and our planet.”

IBM Creates New Fan Experiences using AI and Hybrid Cloud for First-Ever Spectator-less US Open

IBM and USTA bring tournament to life with virtual sports debates and hyper-relevant match insights using IBM Watson, underpinned by an open hybrid cloud architecture

FLUSHING, N.Y., Aug. 28, 2020 — IBM, the digital partner of the United States Tennis Association (USTA) for 29 years, announced today innovative new fan experiences leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) underpinned by hybrid cloud technologies that will enable millions of fans around the world to experience the excitement and vibrant debate surrounding the iconic tennis Grand Slam, the first ever without fans on-site.

A recent IBM sponsored survey of 2000 U.S. sports fans highlighted the importance of digital experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly half (48%) of sports fans who responded think having an interactive digital experience, (streaming, video content, highlights, stats, etc.) has become more important since the coronavirus outbreak.1 Specifically, younger generations have a greater desire for digital experiences, with Gen Z (64%) and Millennials (61%) saying it has become “more important.”

New Fan Experiences, Shift to Fans Everywhere

In partnership with the USTA, IBM developed three unique and new tennis-based digital experiences. Two of the new solutions are based on Natural Language Processing (NLP) capabilities from IBM Watson, pulling from a variety of data sets and running workloads on multiple clouds. At IBM, NLP is critical to AI for business because it enables interpretation of the trends and insights hidden within large amounts of data – including charts, tables, PDFs, images and more. The new solutions were developed by IBM iX, one of the world’s largest digital design agencies, and are available on Official US Open platforms, including USOpen.org and the US Open app. A team of IBM iX experts in design and technology collaborated virtually with the USTA digital team, utilizing the IBM Garage Methodology to co-create the new fan experiences and fast-track their deployment.

The new solutions and the technology powering them include:

  • Open Questions with Watson Discovery: To give fans a way to engage remotely in iconic sports rivalries, IBM will facilitate several debates among fans on USOpen.org. Starting with a question on hot tennis topics such as “Is Billie Jean King the most influential tennis player in history?”, IBM will use the NLP capabilities in Watson Discovery to analyze millions of news and sports sources for insights. That unstructured data will be analyzed, summarized and ultimately delivered as pro and con arguments using IBM Research technology. Fans will also be able to share their opinions on the debates, and engage on topics they are passionate about.
  • Match Insights with Watson Discovery: Fans can become instant “experts” about the players and the tournament match-ups with new AI-powered insights ahead of each match. Match Insights with Watson Discovery uses NLP technology to search for and understand millions of articles, blogs and thought leaders leading into a match, to gather the most relevant information. The solution uses Natural Language Generation technology from IBM Research to translate structured data – like statistics from prior matches – into narrative form, so fans can get fact-based insights on the players and their opponents ahead of match play.
  • AI Sounds: Among the challenges the USTA faced this year was how to recreate the sound of fans inside the stadium. IBM leveraged its AI Highlights technology to recreate crowd sounds gleaned from hundreds of hours of video footage captured during last years’ tournament. In past years, AI Highlights used Watson to digest video footage and rank the excitement level of each clip to compile a highlight reel in near-real time and classify specific crowd reactions, including the crowd roar, to give each clip a crowd reaction score. This insight will be used this year to dynamically serve up those sounds based on similar play from last year. The AI Sounds tools will be available to the production teams in-stadium and at ESPN.

Underpinned by Open Hybrid Cloud

The new fan experience solutions pull from a variety of data sets and APIs running on IBM public cloud and on private clouds. To handle the variety of different workloads required, the USTA is using Red Hat OpenShift to enable a seamless experience across multiple public and private clouds. This hybrid cloud architecture gave the USTA’s digital operation the flexibility and hyper-scale it needed to quickly embrace remote work while maintaining productivity and ensuring the highest commercial level of data security. A hybrid cloud architecture will enable remote operations to function seamlessly.  For example, the USTA statisticians who would normally be courtside, providing stats for each point live, will now be offsite watching each match on low-latency feeds and will still be able to deliver game stats as if they were onsite.

Agile development leads to faster design, testing, deployment

On June 17th, just 75 days before the start of match play, the announcement was made to hold the tournament without fans on-site. As the technology partner of the USTA, IBM had less than twelve weeks to conceive, develop, test and deliver new digital experiences for fans. IBM’s hybrid cloud architecture with Red Hat OpenShift provided the operational agility and flexibility necessary to quickly develop new experiences powered by IBM Watson’s advanced NLP.

“COVID-19 brought disruption to sports as a whole, and the ability of fans to experience live sporting events has been heavily impacted in 2020. At the same time, the pandemic accelerated the need for engaging technologies using AI and underpinned by a scalable hybrid cloud,” said Noah Syken, Vice President of Sports & Entertainment Partnerships, IBM. “As the technology partner to the USTA, we transformed our offerings to meet tennis fans where they are this year – experiencing the sport through the US Open digital properties everywhere.”

“US Open digital properties will deliver the tournament to millions of fans around the world, and this year, IBM’s new digital experiences will bring more data-driven player insight than ever before,” said Kirsten Corio, Managing Director, Ticketing, Hospitality and Digital Strategy, USTA. “Our digital properties and interactive fan experiences have led the way in engaging tennis and sports fans, and we know this year that’s more important than ever. We’ve shifted our platforms and experiences to engage with fans everywhere in this new virtual-only environment.”