Technology automates.

From the invention of the wheel until the present, technological improvements have bettered the lives of humans. Perhaps the main advantage of computing technology is to automate the processes which were mind-numbing and error-prone when done manually.

AI and cognitive solutions are how we automate today.

We are now witnessing an unprecedented era of automation which takes advantage of AI and cognitive technologies. These technologies have and will continue to change industries from banking to retail to healthcare. Subsequently, we have seen AI and cognitive solutions applied from customer service to medical diagnosis and treatment, to fraud detection and manufacturing supply chains. Research from IDC has forecast that worldwide spending on cognitive and AI solutions will reach a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 50.1% over the 2016-2021 period.

He who automates, wins.

Much research, including research cited in an article entitled “The Best Response to Digital Disruption“ from the MIT Sloan Review 1 has shown that early adopters of AI in their industries come out ahead, profit-wise. Maintaining an offensive posture with regard to digital transformation brings a distinct first-mover advantage over those companies which are medium to slow adopters.

AI and cognitive computing demand more from hardware.

In order to get “real-time” insights in a timely manner, the hardware has to be able to keep up. To clarify, it used to be that the bottlenecks were related to the physical limitations of spinning disk storage. Then came the infusion of flash which brought increased vitality to sluggish software. Furthermore, with compute-intensive AI and cognitive solutions, the bottlenecks have moved to the server.

He with the hardware optimized for AI and Cognitive, wins.

Most importantly, to realize the value of AI and cognitive, organizations must make sure that the hardware these programs run on is optimized.

IBM POWER9 chip was designed for the demands of AI and cognitive. IBM has partnered with NVIDIA to boost performance. IBM’s POWER9 chip with NVLink 2.0 delivers 87.5% increased bandwidth over the POWER8 chip. Additionally, IBM POWER9-based Power Systems servers are built for AI and cognitive workloads. All are delivered with pre-loaded firmware and operating system security patches that mitigate known Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities in these OS environments. All lead the industry in performance and value.