IBM Sees Huge Potential For Watson In India

NEW DELHI: International Business Machine (IBM) sees huge potential for its Watson supercomputer in the Indian market in the role of an advisor or helping businesses increase competencies, even as the company tests the scalability of the technology by using it internally.

“Clearly there is desire. Now it’s up to us to get from that desire and interest to meaningful use cases that have business justification,” said Michelle Unger, worldwide head of sales for Watson Engagements at IBM, talking about the potential Indian market for Watson.

A lot is riding on Watson for IBM — it is a big part of chief executive officer Virginia Rometty’s turnaround plan for the company — which in January said it would invest more than $1 billion on the supercomputer system. Watson, which uses cognitive technology, has the ability to store information and learn from its mistakes, much the same way as humans do.

It shot to fame in 2011 when it beat the top contestants on the American game show “Jeopardy”, which involves contestants framing the question for a general knowledge clue provided in answer form. The technology services provider however, is now keen to make Watson commercially viable for customers around the world, and is taking it to developing countries such as India.

The focus areas in the country will not be “anything dramatically different” from their strategy worldwide, which includes the government, healthcare, financial sector, startups and telecom companies as potential customers, said Unger. Michelle Unger also did not rule out the possibility of taking this technology to traditional Indian information technology players and rivals such as Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services.

“I certainly see there’s a lot of efficiency we could bring to their processes using cognitive technology. And these efficiencies can either mean more profit, or make them more competitive,” Unger said. As an example, she said these companies could use Watson’s capabilities to manage their human resources helpdesk processes.

One of Watson’s major selling points is that it can read and understand natural language, but currently works only in English.

Unger is confident it can be trained to understand the nuances and slang of Indian English , which will help it interact with customers in the country better. Watson has found application in studying and gathering information for curing cancer in the United States.

In February, it also announced a 10-year initiative in Africa to help in healthcare, education, water and sanitation, human mobility and agriculture in the continent. IBM, which is facing stiff competition from nimbler rivals Amazon and Google, is now hosting Watson on the cloud to make it more accessible for its customers.

With a workforce of over 400,000 as per its last annual report, does IBM not see fertile ground to test Watson’s ability? “You bet!” said Unger. Through a pilot project called “Watson on Watson” , IBM is encouraging its employees to ask anything about the technology, the different kinds of services available and also suggest further uses.

It will be rolled out to the entire company at the end of June, said Michelle Unger. “And part of it is also allowing us to test the scalability (of the technology)… It is trainable, it’s something from which you can get a pretty short return on investment,” she added.