IBM launches $500M fund to develop enterprise-grade AI
IBM announced on Nov. 7 the launch of a $500 million enterprise AI venture fund, which, according to the company, will focus on “accelerating AI technology and research for the enterprise.”
IBM, focused on accelerating #genAI technology and research for the enterprise, has announced the launch of a $500 million venture fund to invest in #AI companies. Learn more: pic.twitter.com/CQKAtzyolM
— IBM News (@IBMNews) November 7, 2023
Generative AI products for the consumer market, such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Bard, dominate the newswaves in 2023.
IBM is primarily focused on enterprise-level solutions for its AI products such as the Watson X platform and several cloud offerings.
According to Rob Thomas, senior vice president at IBM, generative AI technologies will be a driving force for productivity and profitability in the coming decades.
“AI is projected to unlock nearly $16 trillion in productivity by 2030. With the launch of the IBM Enterprise AI Venture Fund, we're opening another channel to harness the enormous potential of the AI revolution for positive outcomes for IBM and its companies. We invest.
Details on exactly how IBM plans to invest its new $500 million AI venture fund are scarce. According to a company blog post, the fund will focus primarily on AI tech and will be used to “invest in a diverse range of AI companies – from early-stage to high-growth startups.”
This funding follows August's participation in a $235 million Series D round of funding for generative AI firm Hugging Face, a company known for its extensive library of Transformers – the basic technology components for Generative Princed Transformer (GPT) AI models.
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With recent investments, including a Round A participation in machine learning security platform Hidden Layer, IBM continues its ongoing trend of investing in enterprise AI startups and is actively supporting open source platforms, models and protocols.
Hugging Face co-founder and CEO Clem DeLange said in an IBM press release: “With hundreds of open models on the Hugging Face interface, you will significantly grow the open source ecosystem.” “That's why we wanted them to join our Series D round,” he said, adding, “I'm confident they can accelerate their impact on AI with IBM's Enterprise AI Venture Fund.”
