The LRS IT Solutions blog has had several posts about AI, and especially generative AI, over the last few weeks.

We’ve posted about ChatGPT, for example, and the rise of other generative AI technologies. But now there’s something new to say about AI and generative AI.

IBM has announced Watsonx for Z and Linux ONE. IBM Z, the flagship mainframe system, has been the backbone of critical business applications for decades. With the integration of Watsonx.data on IBM Z, this formidable computing platform becomes even more powerful.

It enables businesses to access and leverage vast amounts of critical data residing on the IBM Z platform. Mainframe/transactional data is essential for businesses to understand their customer data, and with Watsonx on IBM z, a new era of data-driven decision-making has arrived.

If you’re thinking IBM is arriving late to the AI party, at least one analyst says you’re wrong.

Daniel Newman, an analyst at Futurum Research, is quoted in a TechTarget piece saying, "This is what I would call the next wave [in generative AI]." It’s a new wave, he said, different because it focuses solely on enterprises.

"What we've seen mostly launched so far has been tools for users, consumers and social, and a few productivity apps," he said.

The TechTarget piece also quotes Gartner analyst Arun Chandrasekaran, who asserts that generative AI adoption is still in its infancy.

"More enterprise clients want to customize the generative AI models to align with their use cases," he said. "IBM is betting on the fact that there will be numerous models used, but clients would look for a consistent set of tools to operationalize them."

So what is this Watsonx? It’s an AI platform consisting of three building blocks: watsonx.ai, watsonx.data, and Watson.governance.

IBM watsonx.data, which is available now, is a fit-for-purpose data store built on an open lakehouse architecture. Developers can use it on-premises or in the cloud, and it can optimize workloads to reduce data warehouse costs by up to 50%. Watsonx.data also provides a single point of entry for users to access their data and multiple query engines for different types of analysis. The solution includes built-in governance tools, automation and integrations with existing databases and tools to simplify setup and improve the user experience.

IBM watsonx.ai is an AI studio where enterprise scientists and developers can build, run and deploy AI based on machine learning and generative AI using a library of high-quality, domain-specific IBM foundation models. The studio also includes a prompt lab for experimenting with a large spectrum of prompts on various foundation models.

Finally, IBM watsonx.governance is a solution that can help operationalize governance, reduce risk and costs associated with manual processes while documenting transparent and explainable outcomes. An AI governance toolkit is being developed that will enable trusted AI workflows. This component will also include mechanisms to protect customer privacy, proactively detect model bias and drift and help organizations meet ethical standards. The expected availability is sometime this year.

For those who can only think about its Jeopardy! championship when they hear the name Watson, there’s a new aspect to the name. Watsonx is now the platform for training, tuning, and deploying AI across your business, leveraging trusted data wherever it resides.

We’d like to tell you more about the AI potential of Watsonx. Just contact us for an appointment with one of our IBM experts.