Middleware Consulting International

ARMONK, N.Y. and SAN FRANCISCO, May 21, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) today announced an expanded strategic partnership which will bring together IBM watsonx AI and Data Platform capabilities with the Salesforce Einstein 1 Platform for greater customer choice and flexibility in AI and data deployment. This will empower teams to make data-driven decisions and take actions directly in their flow of work.

The expanded relationship spans bidirectional data integration, flexibility in large language models (LLMs), prebuilt actions and prompts for CRM solutions, and a further commitment to responsible AI development.

Large language model flexibility with IBM watsonx, Granite models, and Salesforce
Organizations deploying generative AI for CRM use cases need access to LLMs that are suited to their specific business needs. Salesforce, which lets customers choose the LLMs that best suit their needs through its Bring Your Own Large Language Model strategy, plans to allow customers to integrate their LLMs with the watsonx.ai platform and Salesforce Einstein 1 Studio, a collection of low-code AI builders. This will enable access to key IBM Granite series AI models and a customer’s own LLMs built on watsonx.

IBM watsonx helps enterprises build, scale, and govern custom AI solutions with choice of AI models from different providers and the ability to tailor them with their own data. Granite is IBM’s flagship model series trained on enterprise datasets that meet rigorous criteria for data governance, document quality, due diligence, and risk and compliance. IBM Granite models are highly performant and developer-friendly with intellectual property indemnification from IBM to its customers.

Integrating IBM Granite models with the Einstein 1 Platform will empower joint customers of IBM watsonx and Salesforce to utilize Granite models, whether hosted in the cloud or on premises, for diverse use cases including industry content generation, field summarization, and classification. These targeted models are transparent, optimized for trust and designed to scale across the enterprise. In order to help realize faster ROI of IBM Granite models for these use cases, pre-configured prompt templates and copilot actions powered by IBM data and services will be made available for Einstein 1 Studio and invocable in flow and apex.

The Einstein 1 Platform integrates CRM applications, data from any external system with Data Cloud and AI models using a common metadata framework to power the next generation of AI solutions, including Einstein Copilot.

“Clients need enterprise-grade foundation models that are trusted, performant, and cost-effective,” said Ritika Gunnar, General Manager, Product Management, Data and AI, IBM. “Choosing the right foundation models is essential to every organization’s AI strategy and a key determinant of how quickly projects move from pilot to production. IBM and Salesforce are working together to make it easier to navigate the complex generative AI landscape by helping clients select the right LLM for their business needs.”

Industry-specific IBM prompts and actions for Einstein Copilot and Copilot Studio
Together with IBM Consulting and their strong industry expertise, IBM is creating powerful, industry-specific prompt templates and copilot actions which are expected to be made available in Einstein 1 Studio later this year. Using the AI builders in Einstein 1 Studio, Salesforce customers will be able to access these pre-built actions and prompts across Salesforce applications, including Einstein Copilot, Salesforce’s conversational AI assistant for CRM.

Beginning with public sector use cases such as government contact centers, eligibility determination, and licensing and permitting, these pre-configured prompt templates are being designed to be optimized for both foundation and Granite models to help automotive, energy and utilities, financial services and public sector users connect with their constituents on a new level.

IBM Consulting is already helping joint customers establish sustainable, responsible AI frameworks to scale AI-driven Salesforce CRM initiatives across the enterprise, accelerating time to value while helping mitigate risk.

IBM and Salesforce to enable bidirectional data integration between IBM watsonx and Salesforce Data Cloud
IBM has joined the Salesforce Zero Copy Partner Network, a global ecosystem of technology and solution providers building secure, bidirectional zero copy integrations with Salesforce Data Cloud so data can be actioned across the Salesforce Einstein 1 Platform. Customers will be able to access their IBM data via watsonx.data from within Salesforce Data Cloud in a zero copy pattern, simplifying security management and minimizing security risks when exposing data to the business.

Zero copy enables businesses to keep their data in its original location while accessing external data from Salesforce Data Cloud to create a comprehensive view of the customer. This reduces the need for companies to rely on custom integrations and complex data pipelines to integrate and move data to Salesforce from external data warehouses and vice versa. This approach helps customers maximize their technology investments in IBM and access historical data, ensuring it remains integrated and accessible to power analytics and Generative AI. For example, a Data Cloud-triggered Flow updates an account manager in Slack when shipments are marked as delayed in an external lake, enabling them to immediately engage their client.

“Salesforce and IBM are well positioned to make it easier for customers to get the most value from their data — no matter where it resides — and establish a foundation for customer engagement and trusted AI,” said Rahul Auradkar, EVP & GM, Unified Data Services & Einstein, Salesforce. “With the addition of bidirectional data integration, companies can harmonize all of their data faster, fueling actionable insights that empower teams to make data-driven decisions and deliver amazing integrated experiences across all touchpoints and channels for every customer interaction.”

Salesforce joins the AI Alliance, bolsters commitment to open and trusted AI development
Salesforce has joined the AI Alliance and in doing so, will support its mission to create a world where AI is developed collaboratively and transparently, with a focus on safety, ethics, and the greater good. The AI Alliance is an international community of more than 100 leading organizations across industry, startup, academia, research, and government collaborating together to advance open, safe, and responsible AI. By advocating for open innovation with leaders across industry and government, the AI Alliance seeks to foster an environment where AI can thrive and benefit people and society everywhere.

About IBM
IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. More than 4,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service. Visit www.ibm.com for more information.

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

About Salesforce
Salesforce is the #1 AI CRM, empowering companies to connect with their customers in a whole new way through the power of CRM + AI + Data + Trust on one unified platform: Einstein 1. For more information visit: www.salesforce.com.

Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase Salesforce applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “CRM.” For more information please visit https://www.salesforce.com, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.

YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, NY – May 15^th, 2024 – IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the evolution and expansion of Qiskit, its globally adopted quantum software. Launched in 2017, Qiskit, as a software development kit (SDK) is an open-source tool that has allowed over 550,000 users to build and run quantum circuits on IBM’s quantum hardware systems, resulting in the execution of over 3 trillion quantum circuits to date.

The latest version of Qiskit has been expanded to a comprehensive software stack to deliver even more performance. It has evolved from its beginnings as a popular quantum software development kit used to explore and run quantum computing experiments and into a stable SDK and portfolio of services, built to enable users to extract improved performance while running complex quantum circuits on 100+ qubit IBM quantum computers.

This expansion will equip members of the IBM Quantum Network with the most performant Qiskit capabilities available to discover the next generation of quantum algorithms in their respective domains: which will play an important role in their discovery of quantum advantage.

To reach quantum advantage, users need a toolset which can map their problems in a way which leverages both advanced classical and quantum computation; optimizes the problem for efficient execution with quantum; and then effectively executes the quantum circuits on real quantum hardware. IBM has spent the last seven years developing these tools, which are now coming together to comprise the Qiskit software stack.

This expansion of Qiskit includes over 100 releases from its origins as a pioneering research tool built to study the inner workings of quantum computers. Today, Qiskit has matured as a software stack on which enterprises, government organizations, research institutions, and universities are running large-scale quantum experiments.

The expanded software stack of Qiskit includes:

• The stable release of Qiskit SDK v1.x for building, optimizing, and visualizing quantum circuits.
• AI-powered optimization of quantum circuits for quantum hardware, embedded in the Qiskit Transpiler Service.
• Simplified execution modes for the Qiskit Runtime Service which can be tailored for performant execution of quantum circuits on quantum hardware.
• The Qiskit Code Assistant, powered by watsonx-based generative AI models, to automate the development of quantum code
• The Qiskit Serverless open-source tool to run quantum-centric supercomputing workloads across quantum hardware and classical clusters.

The deployment of new capabilities and improvements within Qiskit SDK are enabling users to optimize circuits for quantum hardware at a rate 39 times faster than Qiskit 0.33¹. Qiskit also is engineered to reduce the overhead and shrink the footprint of circuits, demonstrating an average of 3 times reduction in memory usage compared to Qiskit 0.43.²

And using the Qiskit Transpiler Service, users can reduce two-qubit gate counts by an average of 42 percent by combining AI and heuristic passes, compared to using the Qiskit SDK transpiler.

“The global adoption of quantum computing — and the discovery of quantum advantage — will require a combination of leading quantum hardware alongside a robust and performant software stack to run workloads,” said Jay Gambetta, IBM Fellow and Vice President, IBM Quantum. “These two pillars are fundamental to the algorithm discovery that has begun on utility-scale quantum hardware. As a growing quantum ecosystem maps their most difficult problems to quantum circuits, the Qiskit stack will be the cornerstone to exploring the computational spaces in which quantum computing excels.”

IBM first demonstrated the utility-scale capabilities of its quantum hardware in 2023. This signaled the start of an era in which quantum hardware can run quantum circuits faster and more accurately than a classical computer simulating a quantum computer can. Now built to maximize the performance of advanced quantum hardware, the Qiskit software stack aims to help a global ecosystem of users discover new quantum algorithms that explore where quantum computers could be the best way to solve challenges over any classical method.

“Qiskit provides an important collection of tools for E.ON as we explore how quantum computing could help us navigate the financial and operational complexities of the energy industry,” said Giorgio Cortiana, Head of Data and AI – Energy Intelligence, E.ON. “As a performant foundation to build and discover quantum algorithms that can be applied to business use cases, Qiskit enables our team to advance utility-scale prototypes, with the goal of finding new solutions to challenges in the European energy sector.”

“We started using Qiskit for our quantum computing efforts several years ago as part of an effort to help develop a quantum-ready workforce.” said Stephan Eidenbenz, senior scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. “Laboratory researchers use Qiskit daily to interact with IBM’s quantum hardware backends and to test new algorithmic ideas. The open nature of Qiskit also offers our team the ability to add compiler optimization passes and allows pulse-level access.”

“At Brookhaven, we have used Qiskit to execute circuits on IBM’s quantum hardware, which has resulted in almost 20 published papers to date, including exploring the frontiers of physics, dynamic systems, condensed matter systems, and more. Qiskit has also enabled our teams to develop extensions that push forward our exploration of bosonic and hybrid qubit-bosonic circuits, and how they could advance fundamental quantum algorithm development and error correction,” said James Misewich, Associate Laboratory Director for Energy and Photon Sciences, Brookhaven National Laboratory. “As we advance the scientific applications of quantum computing, we have incorporated IBM’s Qiskit resources and tutorials into our educational programs through Brookhaven’s Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage, where we partner with academic institutions like Stony Brook University to prepare the quantum workforce of the future.”

“For our Quantum Computing User Program here at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, advances in quantum computing software can help support the innovation and rapid growth of our user community and their developing technologies,” said Travis Humble, director of the Department of Energy’s Quantum Science Center at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. “Improvements in software performance will significantly impact how users test and evaluate the potential of today’s quantum computing systems.”

“The team at Q-CTRL is enthusiastic about building with Qiskit,” said Michael J. Biercuk, CEO and Founder of Q-CTRL. “Its flexible new interfaces and enhanced stability are enabling us to efficiently build simple abstractions on top of our powerful performance-management software at utility scale, so end users can explore their toughest problems with a single command.”

Built for the Era of Quantum Utility and Beyond

Through its support of rapidly advancing quantum hardware, including vendor-agnostic flexibility, the Qiskit software stack is designed to run the breakthrough quantum circuits to progress the era of quantum utility. This is achieved by replacing performance-critical code with the Rust programming language, alongside a full portfolio of tools to enable the efficient execution of quantum circuits.

As IBM continues to build milestones along its IBM Quantum Development and Innovation Roadmap towards error-corrected systems, the company expects that Qiskit will continue to deliver a framework for open, iterative, and collaborative development of new quantum algorithms and applications, done in conjunction with a growing global ecosystem of clients across industries and domain expertise areas.

Additionally, these advancing capabilities will aim to help users weave together classical and quantum computing resources into a new paradigm of high-performance computing defined by quantum-centric supercomputing that integrates QPUs, GPUs, and CPUs. Orchestrated through the performant software layer of Qiskit, this next evolution of high-performance computing aims to open up new, large, and powerful spaces for industries globally.

1. Disclaimer: IBM’s statements regarding Qiskit’s performance compares the current iteration of the software against its performance from applicable previous version when comparable features were available to users. Qiskit 0.33 total speed time equaled 430.89 seconds at IBM Quantum Summit 2021. Qiskit 1.0 total speed time equaled 10.9 seconds upon release in February, 2024.
2. Disclaimer: IBM’s statements regarding Qiskit’s performance compares the current iteration of the software against its performance from applicable previous version when comparable features were available to users. Qiskit 0.43 memory usage equaled 1,750 MiB in May, 2023. Qiskit 1.0 memory usage equaled 580 MiB upon release in February, 2024.
3. IBM’s statements regarding Qiskit’s performance of providing an average reduction of 42 percent two-qubit gate counts compares optimization of the benchmark SU2 circuit with circular entanglement compiled by the Qiskit SDK transpiler to the same circuit compiled by the Qiskit Transpiler Service as of May 17, 2024. The dataset included circuits with widths from 2 to 111 qubits.

IBM’s statements regarding its plans, directions, and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice at IBM’s sole discretion. The development, release, and timing of any future features or functionality described for our products remain at our sole discretion.

About IBM

IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. More than 4,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.