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IBM to invest $1bn in Watson business unit

Wednesday, 22 January 2014 00:00 Written by Staff writer
IBM said it will invest more than $1 billion to establish a new business unit for Watson, as the tech giant hopes to get more revenue from the supercomputer system that beat humans on the television quiz show “Jeopardy”.

The world’s largest technology service provider said the Watson Group will be headed by Michael Rhodin, who was previously senior VP of ’s software solutions group.

said the investment includes a $100 million equity fund to boost innovation at its Watson Developers Cloud, which it opened up to external application developers last year.

The unit will have about 2 000 employees and will be based in New York City. Watson, which beat expert “Jeopardy” quiz show contestants in 2011, is an artificial intelligence super computer system named after legendary International Business Machines president Thomas Watson. – Reuters