IBM to collaborate with universities on Watson's QA tech
Summary: The company and eight universities will develop the supercomputer's question-answering technology, which it used to compete on US quiz show Jeopardy
IBM and eight universities from around the world will collaborate on developing the company's Watson supercomputer and the question-answering technology behind it.
IBM's Watson supercomputer uses QA technology. Photo credit: IBM
The Watson supercomputer will appear on US quiz show Jeopardy to compete against humans.
The universities signed up to advance Watson's question-answering (QA) technology include: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and its Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab; University of Texas, which will collaborate on automated reasoning and common sense; University of Southern California, which will focus on information extraction and parsing; and Carnegie Mellon, which already contributed algorithms to Watson.
The plan is to develop an open architecture — including open source software — so researchers can collaborate on Watson's QA technology and apply those enhancements in the field.
For more on this ZDNet UK-selected story, see Universities enroll to develop IBM's Watson on ZDNet.com.
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