IBM invests in Europe for cognitive IoT

As part of a global investment of $3billion designed to bring Watson cognitive computing to IoT, IBM has allocated more than $200million to its global Watson IoT headquarters in Munich. The investment, said to be one of the company’s largest ever in Europe, is supposedly in response to demand from customers who are looking to transform their operations using a combination of IoT and AI technologies.

“Germany is at the forefront of the Industry 4.0 initiative and by inviting our clients and partners to join us in Munich, we are opening up our talent and technologies to help deliver on the promise of IoT and establishing a global hotbed for collaborative innovation,” said Harriet Green, head of IBM’s Watson IoT business.

According to the company, the Watson IoT headquarters will be home to the first ever cognitive IoT Collaboratories – hands-on industry labs where clients and partners can work together with IBM’s 1000 Munich-based researchers, engineers, developers and business experts to drive collaborative innovation in the automotive, electronics, manufacturing, healthcare and insurance industries.

The company has also unveiled new IoT capabilities around Blockchain, security and natural language processing, and they have launched a Cognitive IoT Cookbook for developers.