With artificial intelligence expected to be the next big game-changer in the industry, IBM is betting big on its super-computer, Watson. Named after former IBM president Thomas Watson, the system-of-systems is capable of understanding human speech and natural language. It beat two top contestants in American quiz show Jeopardy last year. Manoj Saxena, General Manager of Watson Solutions, IBM, spoke to Business Line about its expansion plans in India, and the potential the super computer holds in the Indian markets. IBM is also launching a new set of offerings next year, targeted towards the growth markets. Saxena said the focus in India is primarily around development and delivery.
What kind of machine is Watson?
We call it the beginning of a third generation of computers or cognitive computers. These are computers which are able to reason and learn. The first generation of computers were tabulating machines — like grinders and weighing machines. The second generation of computers are the ones that we use today. The ones that can process a number of things like invoices and transactions, but they can’t understand human behaviour and words. Watson is the beginning of the third generation of cognitive computing that understands human language and learns from the usage.
What are your plans for Watson in India?
We recently announced the formation of a Watson software and services team in Bangalore. The purpose of the team is to be able to manage the content and information that goes into Watson. We are building a delivery and support team to start supporting our deployments in South-East Asia sometime next year.
I fully expect the India team to be innovating new ways around managing content, as well as innovating with clients on the new solutions to bring to market. We are trying to understand not just the Indian markets, but all the growth markets and seeing what is the functionality and what is the foot print of applications that are needed there.
Are you planning to expand the Watson team to other cities in India?
The next city where we plan to expand into is Pune. Although we can’t give numbers, the team will be made up of both experienced IBMers and freshers. Mid next year, we’ll be announcing a set of offerings. I can’t disclose much, but these are systems that will help knowledge workers — people who are in portfolio management, bond traders or contact centres. Watson could be a good candidate for anything from Dalal Street to the doctor’s office. (Watson is being used to diagnose cancer in the US ).
Will something like this be affordable?
We are pricing and selling Watson not on an upfront fee model, but on a strategic use-case where there is a lot of value for both companies. We are looking for a long-term strategic partnership. We are looking for a typical two-three year relationship with a client. It is a sort of outcome-based pricing. IBM will get paid on the basis of the portion of the value we are creating for our clients.
What kind of competition do you see in this space?
While we haven’t seen any direct competition to Watson, there are people who are beginning to look at this space of natural language processing and machine learning. Companies and Web sites like Wolfram Alpha and Quora, a question and answer Web site, are potential competitors. This whole space of big data and unstructured data analytics is going to get bigger. While we have a good head-start on it, we do know that this space is going to get busy and very fast.
(The reporter was in Singpaore at the invitation of IBM)