Monthly Archives: March 2021

Home 2021 March

Cleveland Clinic and IBM Unveil Landmark 10-Year Partnership to Accelerate Discovery in Healthcare and Life Sciences

IBM Hybrid Cloud, High Performance Computing, Artificial Intelligence, and Quantum Computing technologies to serve as foundation for newly launched Cleveland Clinic Global Center for Pathogen Research & Human Health
IBM plans to install its first private-sector, on premises quantum computing system in the U.S. at Cleveland Clinic. Cleveland Clinic also plans to receive first, next-generation IBM 1,000+ qubit quantum system in the coming years

ARMONK, N.Y. and CLEVELAND, March 30, 2021 — Cleveland Clinic and IBM have announced a planned 10-year partnership to establish the Discovery Accelerator, a joint Cleveland Clinic – IBM center with the mission of fundamentally advancing the pace of discovery in healthcare and life sciences through the use of high performance computing on the hybrid cloud, artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing technologies.

The collaboration is anticipated to build a robust research and clinical infrastructure to empower big data medical research in ethical, privacy preserving ways, discoveries for patient care and novel approaches to public health threats such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Through the Discovery Accelerator, the researchers plan to use advanced computational technology to generate and analyze data to help enhance research in the new Global Center for Pathogen Research & Human Health, in areas such as: genomics, single cell transcriptomics, population health, clinical applications, and chemical and drug discovery.

As part of the collaboration, IBM plans to install its first private sector, on-premises IBM Quantum System One in the United States, to be located on Cleveland Clinic’s campus in Cleveland.  The company also plans to install the first of IBM’s next-generation 1,000+ qubit quantum systems at a client facility, also to be located in Cleveland, in the coming years. This quantum program will be designed to actively engage with universities, government, industry, startups and other relevant organizations. It will leverage Cleveland Clinic’s global enterprise to serve as the foundation of a new quantum ecosystem for life sciences, focused on advancing quantum skills and the mission of the center.

“Through this innovative collaboration, we have a unique opportunity to bring the future to life,” said Tom Mihaljevic, M.D., CEO and President of Cleveland Clinic. “These new computing technologies can help revolutionize discovery in the life sciences. The Discovery Accelerator will enable our renowned teams to build a forward-looking digital infrastructure and help transform medicine, while training the workforce of the future and potentially growing our economy.”

“The COVID-19 pandemic has spawned one of the greatest races in the history of scientific discovery – one that demands unprecedented agility and speed,” said Arvind Krishna, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of IBM. “At the same time, science is experiencing a change of its own – with high performance computing, hybrid cloud, data, AI, and quantum computing, being used in new ways to break through long-standing bottlenecks in scientific discovery. Our new collaboration with Cleveland Clinic will combine their world-renowned expertise in healthcare and life sciences with IBM’s next-generation technologies to make scientific discovery faster, and the scope of that discovery larger than ever.”

“Quantum will make the impossible possible, and when the Governor and I announced the Cleveland Innovation District earlier this year, this was the kind of innovative investment I hoped it would advance,” said Ohio Lt. Governor Jon Husted, Director of InnovateOhio. “A partnership between these two great institutions will put Cleveland, and Ohio, on the map for advanced medical and scientific research, providing a unique opportunity to improve treatment options for patients and solve some of our greatest healthcare challenges.”

The Discovery Accelerator will serve as the technology foundation for Cleveland Clinic’s new Global Center for Pathogen Research & Human Health, announced last month as part of the Cleveland Innovation District. The center, supported by a $500 million investment from the State of Ohio, Jobs Ohio and Cleveland Clinic, brings together a research team focused on broadening understanding of viral pathogens, virus-induced cancers, genomics, immunology and immunotherapies. It will build upon Cleveland Clinic’s existing programs and expertise, with newly recruited world leaders in immunology, cancer biology, immune-oncology and infectious disease research as well as technology development and education. Researchers will expand critical work on studying, preparing and protecting against emerging pathogens and virus-related diseases.

Accelerating Discovery

The pace of progress in science historically has been limited by bottlenecks. Researchers are increasingly working to overcome these bottlenecks with the application of AI, quantum computing and hybrid cloud technologies. New technologies are enabling accelerated methods of discovery that include deep search, AI and quantum-enriched simulation, generative models, and cloud-based AI-driven autonomous labs. Leveraging these combined innovations will supercharge new generations of information technology, fuel important advances in science, and IBM will provide access to a variety of research and commercial technologies, education and tools to assist Cleveland Clinic in accelerating discovery in healthcare and life science, including RoboRXN, a cloud-based platform that combines AI models and robots to help scientists design and synthesize new molecules remotely; the IBM Functional Genomics Platform, a cloud-based repository and research tool, which uses novel approaches to reveal the molecular features in viral and bacterial genomes to help accelerate discovery of molecular targets required for drug design, test development and treatment; Deep Search, which helps researchers access structured and unstructured data quickly; and High-Performance Hybrid Cloud Computing technologies that can enable researchers to “burst” their workloads into the cloud and access the resources they need at scale.

IBM Quantum Flagship Program

Quantum computing has the potential to have an immense impact on key healthcare challenges, such as the discovery of new molecules that can serve as the basis of new pharmaceutical breakthroughs and spur the development of new medicines and could help enhance the ability to derive deep insight from complex data that is at the heart of some of the largest challenges in healthcare.

The Discovery Accelerator will leverage IBM’s multi-year roadmap for advancing quantum computing, bringing its revolutionary capabilities into the hands of scientists and practitioners in healthcare and life sciences. In addition to an on-premises quantum system, Cleveland Clinic will also have access to IBM’s fleet of currently more than 20 quantum systems, accessible via the cloud. IBM is targeting to unveil its first next generation 1,000+ qubit quantum system in 2023, and Cleveland Clinic is planned to be the site of the first private-sector on-premises system.

Building Quantum Skills in Ohio

A significant pillar of the program plans to focus on educating the workforce of the future and creating jobs to grow the economy. The 10-year collaboration plans to include education and workforce development opportunities related to quantum computing.

The innovative educational curriculum will be designed for participants from high school to professional level and offer training and certification programs in data science and quantum computing, building the skilled workforce needed for cutting-edge data science research of the future. Cleveland Clinic and IBM plan to hold research symposia and workshops with joint sessions by IBM and academic researchers for academia, industry, government and the general public.

METACO Leverages IBM Cloud and Confidential Computing Capabilities to Help Secure its Integrated Digital Asset Management Solution

Zurich and Lausanne, Switzerland – March 25, 2021 – Today IBM and METACO, a provider of security-critical infrastructure that helps large banks manage digital assets, announced that METACO will leverage confidential computing capabilities through IBM Cloud and IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Services for their digital asset orchestration system. With its platform running on IBM Cloud, METACO can deliver its traditional finance clients benefits including increased security and scalability as they adopt hybrid cloud strategies.

To address the rapidly growing market demand for digital assets, METACO enables large financial institutions to securely integrate cryptocurrencies, tokens, and distributed ledger use-cases into their core infrastructure. METACO’s unique offering for digital asset custody, transaction management, trading, and tokenization has made it a sound solution for banks and exchanges.

To support the requirements of clients in highly regulated industries such as banking and financial services, METACO leverages ‘Keep Your Own Key’ (KYOK) encryption and confidential computing capabilities from IBM. This solution allows METACO’s clients to retain sole access to their crypto keys, meaning by engineering design, IBM does not have access to clients’ keys. These enhanced security capabilities help clients mitigate the risk of malicious actors manipulating workflows, viewing confidential data or getting access to assets. Additionally, clients can choose where to run their solution – whether in the cloud, on premises or in a hybrid cloud environment.

METACO’s solution for safe custody of digital assets, offers new options of wallet deployments for flexibility of hot, warm, cold, nearline and frozen storage of digital assets, each encompassing a specific balance of security and agility to best fit the needs of institutions. The orchestration system is running in IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Virtual Server enclaves, which provide access to IBM’s confidential computing capabilities.

Adrien Treccani, CEO and Founder of METACO commented, “IBM is one of the financial industry’s longest standing and most trusted technology providers, and we are proud to join forces to strengthen the offering of our custody solution and digital asset orchestration system for institutions. At METACO, we are constantly striving to innovate, expand and improve upon our service offerings. This integration will allow us to deliver greater levels of security and trust to our clients as they innovate in the digital asset space.”

“As the world’s leading financial institutions adopt hybrid cloud, it is critical that they keep in mind security and privacy assurance,” said Hillery Hunter, IBM Fellow, VP and CTO, IBM Cloud.

“As companies such as METACO continue to help the world’s top banks and exchanges manage their digital assets, IBM’s confidential computing capabilities help its clients ensure their data and processes are managed securely, bringing trust into the ecosystem and providing privacy assurance”.

IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Services are available on IBM Cloud and on-premises via IBM LinuxONE, delivering the highest level of commercial privacy assurance available today.

IBM Launches Multizone Region in Brazil as Clients in Latin America Adopt Hybrid Cloud

– Expanded global cloud footprint highlights continued investment in a security-rich cloud infrastructure with confidential computing capabilities
– Prepares clients for a sustainable future with plans for reduced carbon footprint from cloud workloads and data centers
– Clients including Arezzo&Co, Stone and Digisystem can leverage IBM Cloud to help protect mission-critical data

ARMONK, N.Y., March 18, 2021 — IBM today announced the opening of its first IBM Cloud Multizone Region (MZR) in Latin America, an important expansion of its global cloud presence in major markets. Building on its existing data center footprint in Brazil, the MZR is a result of the company’s continued investment in cloud infrastructure to accelerate hybrid cloud adoption and help foster business growth in Latin America. Following the openings of Toronto and Osaka last year, the latest MZR in Brazil marks IBM’s ongoing commitment to help clients across the globe deploy mission-critical workloads with high levels of security and resilience, while helping to address data sovereignty requirements and prepare for a sustainable future.

Clients will gain access to cloud security with IBM industry-leading confidential computing
IBM Cloud’s network is designed for low latency and high security, all while helping clients meet their data sovereignty and compliance regulations – a critical requirement for clients in highly regulated industries like financial services, government, telecommunications and more. By hosting workloads on IBM Cloud – the industry’s most secure and open public cloud for business – clients will be able to use IBM Cloud’s confidential computing capabilities delivered with IBM Hyper Protect Crypto Services and backed by the highest level of security certification commercially available.

This can allow businesses to retain control of their own encryption keys, meaning clients are the only ones who can control access to their data, not even IBM can access it. Additionally, IBM MZRs include a catalog of PaaS services, as well as Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud and IBM Cloud Satellite, to help clients implement architecture and mission-critical applications in hybrid cloud environments.

IBM Cloud MZRs are composed of three or more data center zones with each being an Availability Zone. This is designed so that a single failure event can affect only a single data center rather than all zones – allowing for consistent cloud services and greater resiliency. Clients hosting workloads on IBM Cloud MZRs in any country can continuously run mission-critical workloads to keep business up and running.

Accelerating hybrid cloud across industries to manage mission-critical workloads
A hybrid cloud approach has been helping businesses from different industries across the globe address fast growing challenges in service and product demands. As Brazilian companies turn to IBM Cloud, they can leverage its security capabilities and IBM’s deep industry knowledge:

  • Arezzo&Co, leader in the footwear, bags and female accessories segment in Latin America, has chosen IBM Cloud to help offer a secure, faster shopping experience in any sales channel for its nearly 10 million customers. By working with IBM to adopt a hybrid cloud approach and migrate mission-critical applications to IBM Cloud, Arezzo&Co has been able to modernize key workloads including sales processes and inventory control. As a result, the company has created a more agile and flexible omnichannel strategy, while prioritizing security to run complex workloads and deliver enhanced customer experiences.
  • Stone, a Brazilian fintech that offers financial solutions for more than 650,000 small and medium entrepreneurs, has selected IBM Cloud to move part of its workloads to cloud. Operating in the local market since 2012, Stone recently chose IBM Cloud due to the flexibility and security.
  • Digisystem, a Brazilian company with more than 30 years of experience helping businesses in their digital transformation journeys by providing technology solutions, has migrated many of its solutions to IBM Cloud. By adopting a hybrid cloud approach, Digisystem benefits from enhanced performance, more redundancy, and increased flexibility in the operational systems and in the size of the servers. Furthermore, the migration generated a cost reduction. The new hybrid infrastructure has enabled the IT team to have more autonomy and control over the environments.

Building a sustainable future by preparing to minimize carbon footprint from data centers
As IBM continues to help businesses scale and protect critical data through its expanded global cloud footprint, it is also helping prepare for a sustainable future. Building on its decades-long work to address the global climate crisis, IBM recently announced its commitment to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Utilizing a combination of artificial intelligence, hybrid cloud capabilities and quantum computing, IBM is working with clients and partners to address complex climate-related issues, such as the growing global carbon footprint of cloud workloads and data centers. This is not only critical for the environment, but will also help IBM clients address their own sustainability initiatives as companies across the globe look to minimize their carbon emissions.

“As companies embrace digital transformation, IBM is continuing to invest in cloud infrastructure and hybrid cloud capabilities that will help businesses around the world modernize and drive sustainable growth and innovation,” said Harish Grama, General Manager, IBM Cloud. “Following the openings of Toronto and Osaka MZRs just last year, IBM’s expanded presence in Brazil is designed to deliver our clients high levels of security and reliability, so they can advance in their journey to cloud – all in a way that supports sustainability goals while thriving in a digital era advancing to the future.”

bofrost* Taps IBM to Learn from Data and Better Respond to Customer Needs

IBM Global Business Services, in collaboration with Salesforce, developed a new eCommerce and marketing automation solution for bofrost* that will digitally transform the consumer experience according to changed needs and buying behaviors

Milan, March 16th, 2021 – bofrost*, a European leader in frozen food products, and IBM today unveiled the implementation of a new eCommerce and marketing automation solution as the first milestone of bofrost*’s business transformation journey.

The implementation leverages IBM hybrid cloud software, such as  IBM Cloud Pak for Data, to help anticipate and meet changing customer demands, and Salesforce Commerce Cloud and Salesforce Marketing Cloud technologies, to unify the customer experience across web and mobile. Taken together, these solutions will enable bofrost* to infuse AI throughout its organization and scale its operations to meet increased sales volume, which spiked in 2020 to 10x the growth of the previous year, and follows a decade of continuous growth.

Through this automated, scalable cloud-based solution built with IBM and Salesforce technologies, bofrost* can support fluctuations in online sales while offering its clients a consistent and personalized experience through a more interactive and intelligent website and mobile app that can deliver automated and targeted marketing activities.

At the onset of the pandemic, bofrost* shipped its frozen and fresh products directly to consumers’ homes, reacted promptly to ensure the safety of its employees and responded successfully to the growing demands of its customers who increasingly preferred to shop online.

In June 2020, the Italian-based company started working with IBM on a path of innovation and digital transformation to meet the new needs that had emerged. The first step was a project that analyzed how the COVID emergence transformed customer relationships and how bofrost*’s operating model performed in a situation of high stress on operational activities. The underlying goal was to determine which of these new consumer behaviors would persist after the pandemic and whether business processes and models needed to be revised.

On the basis of this analysis, the evolution of the sales and service models was then defined, leveraging new operational and organizational paradigms that would enable multi-channel and omnichannel solutions.

Now, bofrost*, can offer its clients in Italy, Spain and Switzerland the same high-level client centric approach as it offers with face-to-face sales.

“The COVID-19 pandemic seriously disrupted the way we did things,” said Gianluca Tesolin, CEO of bofrost* Italia. “But with IBM we were able to rethink our strategy and invest in new AI and hybrid cloud capabilities to meet changing consumer expectations now and for the future.”

Through its global alliance with Salesforce, IBM has been able to help transform bofrost* into an increasingly customer-centric company. The journey will lead to a better service experience, with the optimization of online channels – website and applications – and with the 360° knowledge of consumer behavior, made possible by data analysis. In addition, the combination of data provided to support the face-to-face sales – seller and teleseller – with the introduction of new business models to expand customer relations and services, confirms the commitment of bofrost* as an innovative and top-quality retailer.

“The challenge with bofrost* was to work alongside them in both the design of the new model and its implementation, leveraging technology and professional expertise to understand consumer needs and offer innovative solutions that could meet them,” said Rolando Neiger, GM, IBM Global Business Services. “To do so, we used the best experiential methodologies such as design thinking and empathy maps. We are proud to work with a company like bofrost* that is strongly committed to its customers and shares a deep innovative spirit.”

bofrost* Italia
It is the most important Italian company in the direct home sale of frozen food specialties without any interruption of the cold chain. It employs 2,400 people throughout Italy. The head office is located in San Vito al Tagliamento (PN). Today, more than one million Italian families appreciate and know bofrost* Italia products. Quality, taste and excellent service are the success factors of this company. www.bofrost.it

IBM Positioned as a Leader in 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Insight Engines

Organizations and ecosystem partners including EquBot, HSBC and the Clerk of the Superior Court in Maricopa County using IBM Watson Discovery to uncover meaningful business insights

ARMONK, N.Y., March 25, 2021 — IBM today announced that global research firm Gartner has positioned IBM as a Leader in the newly published 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Insight Engines. This builds on the recent news that IBM was positioned as a Leader in the 2021 Magic Quadrant for Cloud AI Developer Services and the 2021 Magic Quadrant for Data Science and Machine Learning Platforms.

In the report Gartner states, “Insight engines combine search capabilities with artificial intelligence to deliver actionable insights derived from the full spectrum of content and data sourced within and external to an enterprise. This Magic Quadrant profiles 15 vendors to help application leaders make the best choice.”

Language can present a unique challenge for businesses – each company and industry has its own vernacular that evolves in response to new innovations, changing consumer expectations and world events. In addition, the language of business comes in many formats, from simple text documents to more complicated formats like charts, tables, PDFs, and images.

IBM Watson Discovery, an AI-powered search and text-analytics service, uses advanced natural language processing (NLP) to help companies find new insights from complex enterprise documents and data.

IBM Research provides a strong pipeline of NLP innovation for IBM Watson designed to help businesses increase accuracy and efficiency, while requiring less data and training time. Over the past year, IBM unveiled new features in beta for IBM Watson Discovery including Reading Comprehension; commercialized advanced sentiment analysis and summarization tools from Project Debater; and partnered with the Recording Academy, Bloomberg & Intelligence Squared, the US Open and ESPN Fantasy Football.

“The majority of data does not fit neatly into a database. It exists in documents. Natural language processing is core to IBM’s AI for business strategy and helps businesses detect business critical insights, perform predictions, and better understand trends,” said Daniel Hernandez, General Manager for Data and AI, IBM. “IBM continues to be positioned as a Leader in reports like the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Insight Engines, which we believe underscores the value IBM Watson is bringing to businesses and partners.”

Organizations and ecosystem partners including EquBot and HSBC, and the Clerk of the Superior Court in Maricopa County are using IBM Watson Discovery in innovative ways to uncover meaningful business insights.

“We are only just now scratching the surface of what AI can do to transform investment management and more broadly financial markets,” said Chida Khatua, CEO, EquBot Inc. “Our team collaborated with HSBC to deliver a first-of-its-kind Artificial Intelligence-powered index (AiPEX) that uses EquBot neural networks with IBM Watson Discovery to uncover new investment opportunities.”

“Our team in Maricopa County receives thousands of service requests each day from our 4 million residents who need support with time-sensitive requests like applying for marriage licenses, renewing passports and accessing court records,” said Aaron Judy, Chief of Innovation and AI, Clerk of the Superior Court in Maricopa County, Arizona. “Using IBM Watson Discovery with IBM Watson Assistant, we’re able to pull up-to-date information from multiple sources across different agencies for complex questions, which helps to keep our citizens informed, keep wait times lower, save our agents valuable time, and provide greater access to justice for all.”

IBM Positioned as a Leader in Two Newly Released Gartner Magic Quadrant Reports

– Businesses across industries such as AMC Theatres and Submergence Group adopting IBM Watson as part of their digital transformation
– Strong pipeline of innovations from IBM Research to IBM Watson in key areas of natural language processing, automation and trust

ARMONK, N.Y., March 11, 2021 — IBM today announced that global research firm Gartner has positioned IBM as a Leader in two newly published Gartner Magic Quadrant reports: the 2021 Magic Quadrant for Cloud AI Developer Services and the 2021 Magic Quadrant for Data Science and Machine Learning Platforms.

“IBM is focused on AI for business and helping customers reclaim precious time through automation, generate critical insights through natural language processing, and foster trust in outcomes derived from AI,” said Daniel Hernandez, General Manager, Data and AI, IBM. “We believe these new recognitions from Gartner underscore the value we’re bringing to businesses through our strategy and our strong innovation pipeline between IBM Research and IBM Watson.”

The 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud AI Developer Services says, “This Magic Quadrant addresses the AI services that software engineering leaders need to enable powerful, next-generation applications”. IBM is recognized as a Leader based on completeness of vision and ability to execute. IBM continues to enhance its portfolio of language, vision and AutoAI products, which includes IBM Watson Assistant, IBM Watson Discovery, IBM Watson Natural Language Understanding, IBM Watson Studio, IBM Maximo Visual Inspection and more, to give developers the easy-to-use tools they need to build AI solutions rapidly.

According to the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Science and Machine Learning Platforms, “This report assesses 20 vendors of platforms that data scientists and others can use to source data, build models and operationalize machine learning.” IBM is recognized for completeness of vision and ability to execute. IBM designed IBM Watson Studio on IBM Cloud Pak for Data to provide end-to-end AI lifecycle management for both experts and citizen data scientists and developers, and it provides strong support for explainability, fairness and governance to help businesses build AI models that they can trust.

Businesses across industries continue to turn to IBM Watson and IBM Maximo products to infuse intelligence into their workflows.

“We’ve started to use Watson Studio to help us gain a much deeper understanding of consumer behavior across theaters and are excited to expand usage of this product within our business,” said Reena Mathews, Senior Director of Analytics, AMC Theatres.

“By greatly simplifying the process of training, deploying and running computer vision models, IBM Maximo Visual Inspection (MVI) has helped us to meet our delivery deadlines even with fast evolving requirements. MVI contains all the ingredients to quickly empower subject matter experts in the maritime industry to build applications without coding or deep learning expertise. Putting AI innovation directly into the hands of experts has been possible using MVI as it offloads most of the tedious tasks enabling a quick deployment of new models,” said Don Scott, Director of Engineering, Submergence Group.

To give businesses, data scientists and developers the capabilities they need to scale AI, IBM is continually bringing new innovations to IBM Watson from IBM Research in the core areas of natural language processing (NLP), trust and automation. In 2020, IBM unveiled advanced NLP capabilities from IBM Research Project Debater in IBM Watson, expanded its AI-powered automation capabilities with the launch of IBM Watson AIOps and announced AI Factsheets, a new methodology for embedding trust and transparency into the development of AI models coming to Watson Studio in Cloud Pak for Data in 2021.