IBM Watsonx


Watsonx is a platform by IBM for building and managing artificial intelligence applications for business use. Announced on May 9, 2023, the platform provides software tools and infrastructure for companies to work with both IBM's own AI models and models from third-party sources.
The platform consists of three main components: watsonx.ai, a studio for training, validating, and deploying AI models; watsonx.data, a system for storing and managing data used by the models; and watsonx.governance, a toolkit to ensure AI applications are compliant with company policies and regulations. A key feature is its ability to be trained on a company's private data to perform specialized tasks, a process known as fine-tuning. IBM states that this client-specific data is not used to train its own models. Like the Watson computer, it is named after Thomas J. Watson, IBM's founder.

History

Watsonx was revealed on May 9, 2023, at the annual Think conference of IBM as a platform that includes multiple services. Just like Watson AI computer with the similar name, Watsonx was named after Thomas J. Watson, IBM's founder and first CEO.
On February 13, 2024, Anaconda partnered with IBM to embed its open-source Python packages into Watsonx.
Watsonx is currently used at ESPN's Fantasy Football App for managing players' performance. It is also used by Italian telecommunications company Wind Tre. Watsonx was used to generate editorial content around nominees during the 66th Annual Grammy Awards.
2025 Wimbledon tapped into the power of generative AI, producing new digital experiences on the Wimbledon app and website using IBM watsonx.
IBM watsonx has also been used in the banking sector to enhance fraud detection and Anti-Money Laundering systems by integrating with IBM Safer Payments, enabling improved detection and prevention strategies.

Services

watsonx.ai

Watsonx.ai is a platform that allows AI developers to leverage a wide range of LLMs under IBM's own Granite series and others such as Facebook's LLaMA-2, free and open-source model Mistral and many others present in Hugging Face community for a diverse set of AI development tasks. These models come pre-trained and are designed to excel in various Natural Language Processing applications, encompassing question answering, content generation, summarization, text classification, and data extraction. The platform allows fine-tuning with its Tuning Studio, allowing those models to learn the data provided by customers.

watsonx.data

Watsonx.data is a platform designed to assist clients in addressing issues related to data volume, complexity, cost, and governance as they scale their AI workloads. This platform facilitates seamless data access, whether the data is stored in the cloud or on-premises, through a single entry point, offering simple use for users who may not possess technical expertise. This approach prioritizes data security and compliance.

watsonx.governance

Watsonx.governance is a platform that utilizes IBM's AI governance capabilities to support organizations in implementing comprehensive AI lifecycle governance. This helps them manage risks and maintain compliance with evolving AI and industry regulations. The platform allows organizations to reduce AI bias by overseeing their AI initiatives, leveraging software automation to enhance risk mitigation, regulatory compliance, and ethical considerations.