IBM showcased a wave of new technologies that would help businesses accelerate their recovery and digital transformation efforts in the wake of the global COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic at its premier annual client and developer conference, IBM Think 2020.

The event was recreated as a global, digital-first forum in light of precautions for the COVID-19 Coronavirus this year.

Delivering the opening keynote titled "The New Essential Technologies for Business”, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna called hybrid cloud and AI "the two dominant forces driving digital transformation." He announced a host of new offerings to help clients on that path.

• A broad range of AI-powered capabilities and services that are designed to help CIOs automate their IT infrastructures to be more resilient to future disruptions and to help reduce costs. A new offering, Watson AIOps, uses AI to self-detect, diagnose and respond to IT anomalies in real time. Watson AIOps is built on Red Hat OpenShift to run across hybrid cloud environments and works with collaboration technologies at the center of today's distributed work environment, such as Slack and Box. https://ibm.co/35IWSjt
  
• New IBM solutions, services and partnerships help businesses make the most of the opportunities presented by 5G and edge computing. With new offerings built on Red Hat OpenShift, enterprises can autonomously manage workloads across a massive volume of edge devices. Telecommunications providers can quickly orchestrate virtual and container network functions to help them provide new services today and as 5G adoption expands. https://ibm.co/35IWKke
• The first Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) providers who intend to onboard their offerings to IBM's financial services-ready public cloud. Assima, C3.ai, Finacle, Intellect Design and Thought Machine have committed to delivering their offerings through that platform, giving participating banks an efficient way to ensure they are working with trusted vendors. https://www.ibm.com/cloud/blog/isv-and-saas-partners-for-ibm-financial-services-ready-public-cloud

More than 90,000 attendees joined IBM's Think Digital event experience that was held on May 5 and 6. The forum included an exciting combination of live streamed content, interactive sessions and certifications and locally hosted events which highlighted IBM's technology and industry expertise for developers and clients. IBM offered technology training and solutions that can help serve as building blocks of transformation and recovery, resilience and discovery.

Quotes

Arvind Krishna, Chief Executive Officer at IBM, said “History will look back on this as the moment when the digital transformation of business and society suddenly accelerated. This is an opportunity to develop new solutions, new ways of working and new partnerships that will benefit your company and your customers, not just today, but for years to come.

“Technology platforms are the basis for competitive advantage in the 21st century," Krishna added. "They will determine how quickly you can pivot to new market opportunities, how well you serve your clients, how much you can scale, and how fast you can respond to a crisis like the one we're facing today. I’m predicting today that every company will become an AI company – not because they can, but because they must.”

External Links:

Watch a replay of Arvind Krishna's Think Digital keynote