IBM Research Lab, based in Zurich, Switzerland, has developed a new generic pre-processing building block that enables machine learning algorithms to absorb new information faster.
This development is expected to greatly benefit the booming AI industry. According to Thomas Parnell, an IBM mathematician in Zurich, they have developed a universal solution to the AI learning process that is 10x faster.
The potential benefits of new developments in the AI industry
According to the research lab, the main purpose of the present invention is to increase the speed at which AI machines learn new information.
The data block uses mathematical duality to filter important information in the data stream, ignoring unimportant data blocks, mainly for big data machine learning. Despite its enormous potential, much remains to be done to improve the block before it is ready for commercial use. The company plans to continue developing the system in IBM’s Cloud, where it will be referred to as Duality-Gap-based heterogeneous learning.
IBM is seeking volunteers in Technology Support Services (TSS) to throw themselves down the redundancy chute by the end of the year.
As The Reg revealed last week, blue giants’ top British copper executives told employees that TSS and IS Delivery employees formed a workforce that represents the latest round of layoffs.
Andy Roberts, TSS exec in the UK and Ireland Global Technology Services division yesterday wrote a memo to his team that confirmed first meeting of the Employee Consultation Committee.
Last week’s memo warned that people working on TSS and IS Delivery will hold 45-day consultations starting December 6, meaning at least 100 IBM employees will become former IBM employees by the end of the deadline. Part of the expenditure is by reducing the number of people in high-wage locations and transporting those roles to regions such as Eastern Europe and India.
Staff members are actually reluctant to give up on their own because “it seems that there is no financial incentive for” volunteers to receive payment equivalent to the statutory layoffs.” As El Reg said earlier, IBM hopes that eight of its global technology services staff will be able to pay for lower staff costs.
IBM has put the global technology services together with its cloud platform business in a patchwork of 2% to $ 4.1 billion in the third quarter ended Sept. 30. In the first nine months of 2017, sales dropped to $ 25.07 billion, compared with $ 26.02 billion the previous year.
Given the current megatrend in the AI industry, companies can benefit greatly from this discovery. However, it remains to be seen if the company can successfully shape this new technology and how it will play its role in the real world in the near future.
Related: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/12/07/ibm_tss_voluntary_redundacies/