IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that it is launching a $500-million venture fund to invest in a range of AI companies - from early-stage to hyper-growth startups - focused on accelerating generative AI technology and research for the enterprise.
IBM has demonstrated its commitment to promoting AI for business through its recent investments in AI technology and companies. For example, IBM announced in August that it is participating in the $235-Million Series D funding round of Hugging Face, the leading open-source collaboration platform for the machine learning community building the future of AI. IBM has contributed hundreds of open models and datasets on Hugging Face, including the recent release of the Geospatial Foundation Model in partnership with NASA. It is the largest geospatial foundation model on Hugging Face and the first-ever open-source AI foundation model built in collaboration with NASA.
According to Tuesday’s news release, “IBM has a long history of bringing proven enterprise AI technology and capabilities to organizations around the world and is capitalizing on the latest wave of AI innovation in generative AI with watsonx, the company's AI and data platform.
With the IBM Enterprise AI Venture Fund, the company will grow its ecosystem of AI partnerships - including working with companies leveraging and building on watsonx - and create long-term value for AI leaders as well as new and existing clients.”
The behemoth known as “Big Blue” saw its shares slip 45 cents to $148.52.
