IBM Extends Partnership with AWS; Launches Indian Innovation Lab

IBM has expanded its partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to support mutual clients in implementing and leveraging cutting-edge technologies, such as generative artificial intelligence (AI). To facilitate this collaboration, IBM has inaugurated the Innovation Lab in conjunction with AWS at the IBM Client Experience Center in Bangalore.

This pioneering lab marks a significant milestone in the IBM-AWS partnership and is accessible to clients worldwide. It offers a unique opportunity to explore collaborative IBM-AWS solutions and experiment with prototypes and proofs of value. These initiatives are designed to expedite innovation across diverse sectors, including Banking and Financial Services, Automotive, Manufacturing, Energy and Utilities, Travel and Transportation, and Healthcare, among others.

The lab is organized into specialized zones, each dedicated to specific technology domains supported by generative AI and machine learning. These zones showcase cloud modernization, SAP transformation, industry-specific innovations, data and technology transformation, and cybersecurity. Additionally, customers can benefit from valuable insights shared by their global peers through the exchange of case studies, enabling them to learn best practices in their respective fields.

Anuj Malhotra, Vice President and Senior Partner, Growth Platforms, IBM India Client Innovation Centre for IBM Consulting said, “With the IBM Innovation Lab being launched in collaboration with AWS in India, our objective is to showcase the full potential of the joint value proposition that IBM and AWS offer to our clients from across the world. Clients can now experiment with the latest cloud-enabled technologies including generative AI in our lab, before actually implementing and scaling solutions on AWS. Our teams at the lab, consisting of technology and industry experts from IBM and AWS, will help build rapid prototypes that address client business and technology challenges. IBM and AWS have a history of driving client innovation by leveraging the latest technology such as AI in India. We look forward to deepening our partnership with AWS and supporting even more clients across industries and across geographies to unlock the full potential of cloud and generative AI.”

IBM and AWS provide combined expertise on Cloud-enabled solutions

Vaishali Kasture, Director and Country Leader, Commercial Sales, AWS India and South Asia said, “AWS is delighted to be launching an innovation lab with our AWS Premier Tier Consulting Partner, IBM. By combining the AI and data analytics expertise of IBM and AWS’s broadest and deepest set of cloud-enabled solutions, we look forward to driving industry transformation and developing solutions that address real-world customer needs. AWS remains committed to investing in working backward from our joint customers and leveraging advanced cloud technologies like generative AI and the innovation lab as a sandbox environment, to ideate and scale industry-focused solutions.”

IBM Consulting and AWS have been assisting clients from diverse industries with a multitude of AI solutions and services. Presently, these offerings are being augmented by the potency of generative AI. This enhancement is crafted to aid clients in seamlessly integrating AI into their business and IT operations, leveraging the robust foundation provided by AWS.

IBM Consulting and AWS plan to start with these specific solutions:

Contact Center Modernisation with Amazon Connect – IBM Consulting collaborated with AWS to develop generative AI-based summarization and categorization features for voice and digital interactions. These features enable smooth transitions between chatbots and human agents and provide agents with concise summaries of customer interactions that help expedite resolution times and enhance quality management.
Platform Services on AWS – Introduced in November 2022, this offering has undergone recent enhancements, integrating generative AI capabilities. This upgrade enables more effective management of the entire cloud value chain, encompassing IT Ops, automation, and platform engineering.

The latest generative AI capabilities provide clients with advanced tools to enhance the serviceability and availability of their applications hosted on AWS. This is achieved through intelligent issue resolution and observability techniques. Clients can anticipate improved uptime and reduced mean time to repair. It enables them to respond swiftly and effectively to any potential issues that may arise.

Supply Chain Ensemble on AWS – This upcoming offering will unveil a virtual assistant designed to enhance the efforts of supply chain professionals. It will aid in accelerating tasks related to meeting customer expectations, optimizing inventories, minimizing costs, simplifying logistics, and evaluating supply chain risks.

Furthermore, IBM Consulting intends to integrate AWS generative AI services into its exclusive IBM Consulting Cloud Accelerator for clients seeking modernization on AWS. This integration aims to expedite the cloud transformation process; assisting with tasks such as reverse engineering, code generation, and code conversion.

Commitment to deepening expertise and expanding AWS on Watsonx integration

IBM has developed significant expertise in utilizing AWS's generative AI services, encompassing tools like Amazon SageMaker and Amazon CodeWhisperer. IBM stands out as one of the initial AWS Partners to leverage Amazon Bedrock. Likewise, It is a fully managed service offering industry-leading foundation models (FMs) accessible through an API. This enables clients to select the most suitable model for their specific use case.

Clients aiming to implement generative AI require expertise in AI and a thorough comprehension of AWS capabilities. IBM is currently offering mutual clients access to specialists from IBM Consulting’s Center of Excellence for Generative AI and Innovation Lab. These professionals possess specialized expertise in generative AI, ensuring clients receive tailored and proficient guidance.

In the latest update, IBM Consulting has announced its initiative to train and empower 10,000 consultants in AWS generative AI services by the end of 2024. These consultants will gain access to an exclusive partner-only program. It offers training on key use cases and best practices for client engagement with AWS generative AI services. This program aims to enhance their expertise and facilitate interactions with technical professionals. It enables them to better assist clients in their innovative endeavors on AWS.

“Enterprise clients are looking for expert help to build a strategy and develop generative AI use cases that can drive business value and transformation – while mitigating risks,” said Manish Goyal, Senior Partner, Global AI and analytics Leader at IBM Consulting. “Paired with IBM’s AI heritage and deep expertise in business transformation on AWS; this suite of re-engineered solutions with embedded generative AI capabilities can help our mutual clients to scale generative AI applications rapidly and responsibly on their platform of choice.”

AWS provides SaaS solutions for clients

IBM is meeting the rising demand from clients for generative AI capabilities on AWS by introducing Watsonx. data. That is a specialized data store designed on an open lakehouse architecture. This solution is now accessible on AWS as a fully managed software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering, available through AWS Marketplace. Furthermore, IBM plans to extend its offerings by making watsonx.ai and watsonx. governance available on AWS by 2024. These efforts build upon the collaborative commitment of both companies to simplify the consumption of IBM's data, AI, and security software for clients on the AWS platform.

“Our customers are increasingly looking for the technical support and AI expertise they need to build and implement a generative AI strategy that drives business value from their entire cloud value chain,” said Chris Niederman, Managing Director of Global Systems Integrators at AWS. “We are excited to be working with IBM to include embedded generative AI capabilities that assist our mutual customers scale their applications – and help IBM consultants deepen their expertise on best practices for customer engagement with AWS generative AI services.”