IBM and SoftBank release Watson Japanese language API

Unlike past competitions held by the foundation – such as the Ansari X Prize, which challenged teams to build spacecraft capable of taking passengers to suborbital space – the latest competition allows teams to define their own challenge.

In a blog post for the competition, IBM wrote: “IBM believes this competition can accelerate the creation of landmark breakthroughs that deliver new, positive impacts to people’s lives, and the transformation of industries and professions”. Today there is a great opportunity to advance the work being done by the best and brightest of this community and use A.I.to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges.

Each year leading up to the TED2020 conference, teams will compete for smaller rewards at IBM’s World of Watson event, with some picked to progress to the following year’s competition.

And so IBM Watson’s massive marketing push continues: this time with the launch of a $5m (£3.4m) prize in an artificial intelligence competition that will run until 2020.

The rules and other details of the competition will be made available in May, but the whole idea seems to be that they won’t be prescriptive.

The organization has said that the interested teams can register with them by going to its X Prize website. And it’s about to get busier.

IBM leads the way on AI – definitely makes sense and should given the years of research & funding spent on Watson.

‘Personally, I am sick and exhausted of the dystopian conversation around artificial intelligence, ‘ Diamandis said, referring to high-profile public debate whether self-aware and smart machines would annihilate humanity or help it thrive. Three winning teams will collectively receive $4.5 million of the prize money.

People have been talking and writing about artificial intelligence for years, and the technology is finally reaching a point where it’s beginning to make some pretty interesting headlines.

In a move that will boost the availability of IBM Watson-powered apps in Japan, IBM and SoftBank have released six cognitive services in the Japanese language. He described it as “a collaboration that’s able to take on and solve human grand challenges”.