Partners are the linchpin for scaling enterprise AI success

IBM today announced new advances in AI technology that continue to make it easier for businesses to transform with choice, openness and trust. Most notable is the launch of powerful new Granite models, which outperform or match the performance of similarly sized models from leading model providers. We also introduced the next generation of watsonx Code Assistant for general purpose coding and debuted new tools for building and deploying AI applications and agents, all designed with specific enterprise use cases in mind.

The IBM Ecosystem acts as the linchpin to ensure clients can access and put AI advances like these to work for their business. Comprised of ISVs, hyperscalers, resellers and distributors, service providers, technology partners, consultancies, systems integrators and MSPs, these partners are bringing our state-of-the-art technology to business users at scale.

The ultimate force multiplier

The work the IBM Ecosystem is doing with AI reflects our evolution to become a partner-first company, a move we made years ago in recognition that the digital transformation needs of modern businesses cannot be met by one single company.

This week we celebrate news about the role our ecosystem plays in expanding access to our AI technology through the enormous developer communities and ecosystems of our strategic partners. The collaborations announced in recent weeks represent tremendous momentum:

• AWS now offers several of our Granite Models available for Amazon Sagemaker JumpStart via the AWS Marketplace and for Amazon Bedrock as a custom model import.
• Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.via its Qualcomm® AI Hub, SalesforceandSAP have partnered with IBM to make Granite models available to their enormous developer communities and ecosystems, building on IBM's developer network of more than half a million problem solvers.
• Samsung SDS is piloting the Granite Time Series models for anomaly detection in the manufacturing industry, as well as open-sourced Granite LLMs via watsonx for supply chain relationship management use cases.
• A selection of the 3.0 models will be available across partner platforms like Domo and as Nvidia NIM microservices. A curated set of the Granite language and MoE models are available on Ollama and Replicate. The entire suite of Granite 3.0 models and the updated Time Series models are available for download on HuggingFace under a fully permissive Apache 2.0 license. IBM Granite models are also available on Docker.

These strategic partnerships are just one way we continue to drive broad access to IBM technology. We also maintain deep relationships with tens of thousands of resellers globally, such as CDW and Converge which are assembling the best solutions from across the industry, collaborating with hyperscaler marketplaces. They provide a multitude of value-added services to improve client outcomes. Clear Technologies, for example, is using IBM Granite models to provide clients with weekly insights and analysis, enhancing their intelligence capabilities.

It takes a village to bridge the AI skills and cost gap

While business leaders are optimistic about the potential for generative AI in the enterprise, the reality of moving these projects from experimentation into production remains complicated as they grapple with issues of trust, quality, scale-and often, prohibitive costs. In fact, even with the right technology and expertise, the complexity and cost of developing and deploying AI projects can be insurmountable for some companies.

We've helped address these challenges by partnering with the world's leading consultancies and systems integrators that are providing the industry and domain expertise clients need for their most important digital transformation projects. Over the past year, we've collaborated with partners like LTI Mindtree and Wiproto establish watsonx Centers of Excellence. We are also working with companies like EY, Tech Mahindra, and NTT Data as they build solutions with watsonx and Granite models to target enterprise use cases such as human resources, sales support, document summarization and customer experience.

We also continue to collaborate with global distributors such as TD Synnex to establish Gen AI Centers of Excellence and learning hubs, as well as to set forth new initiatives to better equip their resell partners to drive AI-led solutions.

Additionally, we work with many software vendors such as Accusoft, Airtable and Applause which are embedding IBM watsonx and showcasing how ISVs of all shapes and sizes can use IBM AI capabilities-including those launched today-to quickly build efficient, customizable and trusted AI-powered solutions for various industries.

Opportunities abound for both partners and clients

AI is projected to unlock an astounding $16 trillion in value by 2030, generating considerable opportunity for technology providers of all shapes and sizes across the industry. The IBM Ecosystem is exceptionally well-positioned for success, with a winning combination of the most advanced IBM AI technology designed exclusively for businesses, the same skilling resources available to IBMers, and a business model designed to put partners first.

With today's news, we're reminded that the power of AI technology is only as great as its its ability to get into the hands of developers, open-source communities and business users. Through the IBM Ecosystem, each of those cohorts is gaining access to precisely the right models, tools and expertise they need so they can accelerate their projects and get down to business with AI.

Explore IBM Partner Plus today

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