IBM launches AutoSQL, Watson Orchestrate, CodeNet enterprise AI tools at Think

IBM launched a series of tools that revolve around accelerating AI adoption in the enterprise including one called Watson Orchestrate that may be set up to be a knowledge worker's digital twin.

CEO Arvind Krishna's overarching message at IBM's Think conference is that the company is all in on AI and hybrid cloud. The company showed traction in those categories in the first quarter and is structuring itself on those two areas. Indeed, the build up to Think has been busy. 

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"In the same way that we have electrified factories and machines in the past century, we will infuse AI into software and systems in the 21st century," said Krishna. "What's critical to understand is that the percentage of AI adoption is still in the single digits."

Krishna's strategy with IBM is to infuse AI and intelligence into various enterprise processes ranging from cloud to security to workflows. Krishna made the distinction between consumer AI and enterprise, which will be focused on smaller amounts of data, processes and operations that take into account conditions, regulations and other factors.

IBM rolled out the following at its Think conference.

Watson Orchestrate, which may become your personal digital twin with the use of AI. The tool is aimed at boosting personal productivity in sales, human resources and operations. Watson Orchestrate uses AI to select and sequence pre-packaged skills to complete a task. Watson Orchestrate integrates with tools like Slack, email, Salesforce, SAP and Workday to complete routine tasks including approvals and scheduling meetings. The tool is in preview in IBM Automation Cloud Paks with general availability later in 2021. Key items include:

• Watson Orchestrate can understand context and maintain it based on organizational knowledge and prior interactions.
• Automation tools are self-serve and don't require IT skills.
• Watson Orchestrate follows up on a series of IBM acquisitions such as WDG, Instana, myInvenio and Turbonomic.

AutoSQL, an automation tool for accessing, integrating and managing data, is coming to IBM Cloud Pak for Data. AutoSQL uses AI to deliver answers to distributed queries faster and with lower costs. According to IBM, AutoSQL will make IBM Cloud Pak for Data the highest performing cloud data warehouse with the ability to work across multiple clouds and hybrid deployments.

Project CodeNet, an open-source dataset that features 14 million code samples, 500 million lines of code and 55 programming languages. The idea here is that Project CodeNet will enable AI to search for code, find similarities and code constraints. Project CodeNet can also be used to translate legacy code bases into modern languages.

Mono2 Micro uses AI to analyze large enterprise apps and recommend how to move them to the cloud and speed up migrations. The tool will be added to WebSphere Hybrid Edition.

Qiskit Runtime to speed up quantum circuit processing speed by 120x. Qiskit Runtime is containerized and designed for workloads such as chemical modeling and financial risk analysis. IBM's Qiskit Runtime is of a broader quantum computing effort to build out a developer ecosystem leveraging the Qiskit programming language. IBM outlined its quantum computing hardware roadmap in September. 

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In addition, IBM launched a mobile platform for its Maximo asset management platform for field technicians, a center of excellence for hybrid cloud deployments with EY and additional training for partners.