Editor’s note: CompTIA is a content partner of WRAL TechWire.

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DOWNERS GROVE, Ill. – CompTIA, the nonprofit association for the information technology (IT) industry and workforce, announced today that up to 2,000 people across the country, from communities that are underrepresented in technology, will be trained to work as technical support and help desk professionals as part of its new workforce development program.

CompTIA’s new program is in collaboration with IBM SkillsBuild, a free education program focused on underrepresented communities in tech, that helps adult learners, and high school and university students and faculty, develop valuable new skills and access career opportunities. The program includes an online platform that is complemented by customized practical learning experiences delivered in collaboration with a global network of partners.

In addition to technical training including CompTIA A+ courses, the new program will deliver training that focuses on durable skills such as critical thinking, leadership, collaboration, and other professional proficiencies that enhance an individual’s likelihood of success.

“This program supports CompTIA’s mission of unlocking the potential of tech job seekers from all communities,” said Mark Plunkett, senior vice president of global solutions and services with CompTIA. “CompTIA has a long-standing and ongoing commitment to building a robust tech workforce by helping individuals grow in confidence and unlock their potential to work in tech.”

A vital part of the new program will be collaborating with employers and other private and government organizations to create and expand career development options and to establish a strong, sustainable pipeline of skilled workers. The program represents a host of opportunities for joint public-private funding.

“Government-funded workforce development programs can struggle to bring private sector partners to the table,” said Plunkett. “This program is a collaboration with IBM from the private sector, combined with CompTIA’s not-for-profit mission so state and local agencies and community-based organizations with an interest in workforce development will have new opportunities to bring training programs to their communities.”

IBM and CompTIA’s collaboration is part of IBM’s commitment to equipping 30 million people globally with new skills needed for the jobs of tomorrow by 2030. IBM is investing in both the future of work with a holistic, end-to-end ecosystem approach that fosters access to education and training while creating a more diverse pipeline of applicants.

“We’re excited to collaborate with CompTIA to work toward making technology learning more accessible to everyone,” said Justina Nixon-Saintil, IBM Chief Impact Officer. “Through our work with partners, we provide enhanced, free access to tech learning and workplace skills via IBM SkillsBuild. Together, we’re committed to investing in the future of tech talent across industries.”

This collaboration comes as IBM unveiled the results of a global skills survey, conducted with Morning Consult and commissioned by IBM. The study revealed widespread misconceptions about skills and careers in technology and highlighted accessible pathways for students and job seekers to pursue a future in technology. IBM SkillsBuild collaborations such as the one with CompTIA help tackle these misconceptions and bring STEM education closer to historically underrepresented communities in the field.

• IBM wants its former top exec in Thailand to return $470,000 in bonuses after taking a job at a rival.
• IBM said Patama Chantaruck violated an equity awards plan when she started working at Accenture.
• The tech company said Chantaruck refused to repay the amount "without justification."

IBM wants its former top executive in Thailand to return $470,000 in bonuses after she started a job at one of its competitors, Accenture, just six weeks after leaving the company. 

In a lawsuit filed in New York on Monday, which Insider has reviewed, IBM said that Patama Chantaruck started working at IBM Thailand as the country's general manager in 2018. This made her "the highest-ranking IBM executive in Thailand," the company said. 

During her employment, Chantaruck received a number equity awards from IBM as part of an agreement to safeguard IBM's confidential information, and "not engage in certain proscribed competitive conduct within specific time periods," the company wrote in the lawsuit.

IBM said that under the plan it was entitled to rescind the equity awards if Chantaruck engaged in "detrimental activity," which it said included accepting employment with competitors within a restricted time period.

Insider reached out to IBM for clarification on the length of this time period, but did not immediately hear back. 

Chantaruck resigned from IBM Thailand, effective February 28, 2022, the suit says. Less than six weeks later, on April 11, she started working at Accenture in what IBM says is a role "highly similar" to what she did at IBM Thailand.

On Chantaruck's LinkedIn, she lists her job title as country managing director at Accenture Thailand. The dates of employment listed on her profile tally with what IBM states in the lawsuit.

IBM claimed in the lawsuit that it was canceling and rescinding the equity awards and demanded repayment of $470,220.96 by November 1, which it later extended to January 9, but that Chantaruck has, "without justification, refused and failed" to repay the amount.

IBM sued Chantaruck for breach of contract and asked the court to order her to repay the bonuses plus interest, as well as IBM's attorneys' fees and costs.

Chantaruck, who had previously spent more than 20 years working at Microsoft, was listed as one of the Bangkok Post's 24 Women of the Year in 2021.

Chantaruck did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment on LinkedIn. Bloomberg first reported on the lawsuit.

• As global respondents look to change jobs in the next 12 months, awareness of career and training options is low

• To tackle these misconceptions and bring STEM education closer to underrepresented communities, IBM is adding 45 IBM SkillsBuild collaborations around the world

ARMONK, N.Y., Feb. 14, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Job seekers, students, and career changers around the world want to pursue roles related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) across different industries, but say they are not familiar with career options. At the same time, online training and digital credentials are emerging as a recognized pathway to opportunity as respondents plan to seek new jobs in the year ahead.

These were some of the global findings from a new study that IBM (NYSE: IBM) unveiled today. The study*, administered by Morning Consult and commissioned by IBM, is based on more than 14,000 interviews of students, people seeking new jobs, and people seeking to change careers, located across 13 countries. Respondents also cited concerns that career options may not be available to them. These findings contrast with market data that employers are investing in the reskilling of their current workforce to keep pace with rapid advances in technology and stay relevant in the modern, digital economy.

"Technology training can have a transformational effect on a person's life," said Justina Nixon-Saintil, IBM Chief Impact Officer. "There are many misconceptions about what's needed to pursue a rewarding and lucrative career in today's rapidly advancing workplace. This is why we must raise awareness of the breadth of science and technology roles that exist across industries. Together with our IBM SkillsBuild partners, we're highlighting the many pathways that exist for underrepresented communities to pursue futures in tech."

To help tackle these misconceptions and bring STEM education closer to historically underrepresented communities in the field, IBM is announcing today 45 new educational partners around the world. These IBM SkillsBuild collaborations across social service, economic development, and vocational organizations, as well as government agencies, and universities, will make free online learning widely available, with clear pathways to employment. Many of these organizations focus on specific communities that are underrepresented in technology and will help skill women, including mothers returning to the workforce, ethnic minorities, low-income individuals, and refugees. [Full list of collaborations below]

Story continues

Study Shows Misconceptions and Opportunities in Tech and Beyond

The IBM / Morning Consult study revealed perceptions from interviewed students, career changers, and job seekers who are interested in a role in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM):

Misconceptions around STEM training: it's too expensive, learners don't know where to start, and don't know enough about digital credentials.

• 61% of respondents think they are not qualified to work in a STEM job because they don't have the right academic degrees

• 40% of students say the greatest barrier to professional or technical skill development is that they don't know where to start

• 60% of respondents worry that digital credentials may be costly to obtain

• Being able to continue to work while earning a credential is particularly important to career changers

Learners and workers around the world are planning to make a change, with about 60% of respondents looking for a new job in the next 12 months.

• 61% of students and career changers are actively looking for a new job now or plan to within the next year

• More than 80% of all respondents have plans to build their skills in the next two years

• At least 90% are confident they can develop skills or learn something new from an online program

Awareness of options around different STEM roles across industries is low, and many are concerned these careers won't pay enough.

• 50% of respondents are interested in pursuing a STEM-related job

• 64% of career changers are not familiar with STEM jobs

• Many respondents are unsure of which careers are considered to be a STEM job

• 62% of respondents share concerns that they won't be able to find a STEM job that pays enough to support themselves or their family

Respondents are optimistic that roles in STEM fields across sectors will increase in the future, and that digital credentials are a good way to supplement traditional education and increase career opportunities.

• 66% of all respondents think that STEM jobs across industries will increase over the next decade

• 86% of those respondents who have earned a digital credential agree that it helped them achieve career goals

• 75% of all respondents agree that digital credentials are a good way to supplement traditional education

• Increased career opportunities and qualifications were the top reasons why respondents across the globe said they wanted to earn digital credentials

45 New Collaborations Around the World  
Through a holistic approach to investing in the future of work, IBM is supporting learners and helping tackle their misconceptions about technology and STEM careers. IBM SkillsBuild is bringing free technology training available to learners all over the world, with a focus on underrepresented communities in tech. Online training, like the courses offered by IBM SkillsBuild, is most effective when it is delivered collaboratively with local partners. Community experts enrich course content through project-based learning and connect learners with real career opportunities. To this end, today IBM SkillsBuild is proud to announce 45 new and expanded collaborations around the world:

• Brazil: Inteli; Mastertech

• China: University of Petroleum

• Costa Rica: Asociación Costarricense de Iniciativas de Desarrollo (CINDE)

• Czech Republic: Czechitas

• France:  CY Cergy Paris Université; Social Builder

• India: GSHEC-Goa State Higher Education Council; Gurukul Kangri University-Haridwar; Indira Gandhi Delhi Technical University for Women; ISA - International Solar Alliance; KRIES – Karnataka Residential Educational Institutions Society; KSDC- Karnataka Skill Development Corporation; National Institute of Electronics & Information Technology (NIELIT); OSDA – Odisha Skill Development Authority; RV College of Engineering; Sister Nivedita University-Kolkata; Tamil Nadu Skill Development Corporation

• Indonesia: PT Kinema Systrans

• Japan: Freelance Association Japan FAJ

• Malaysia: EduNxt Global Sdn Bhd University

• New Zealand: Yoobee Colleges Limited

• Qatar: Community College of Qatar

• South Africa: Innovolution Educational Programmes; Nelson Mandela University; Sefako Makgatho University of Health Sciences;  WeThinkCode_, YiEDI

• Sweden: New to Sweden, Young Scientists

• Taiwan: Gap of Learning & Field (GOLF)

• United Arab Emirates: Abu Dhabi University; University of Wollongong in Dubai; Zayed University

• United States: CompTIA; Digital Promise; Franklin Apprenticeships; HDG University;  ITExperience; Junior Achievement of Arizona; Mom Relaunch; RISE — The Mom Project; The Wond'ry at Vanderbilt University; Transition Overwatch; University of the Cumberlands

Through collaborations like these, IBM continues to progress towards its commitment to skill 30 million people globally by 2030.

*Methodology: This study was conducted by Morning Consult on behalf of IBM from November 2 - December 20, 2022. The study was conducted among a trial of 4,926 Students, 4,629 Job Seekers, and 4,628 Career Changers in 13 countries (Brazil, Canada, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Singapore, Spain, UAE, UK, and the US).

About IBM SkillsBuild

IBM SkillsBuild is a free education program focused on underrepresented communities in tech, that helps adult learners, and high school and university students and faculty, develop valuable new skills and access career opportunities. The program includes an online platform that is complemented by customized practical learning experiences delivered in collaboration with a global network of partners.

The open version of IBM SkillsBuild is an online platform that offers over 1,000 courses in 19 languages on cybersecurity, data analysis, cloud computing, and many other technical disciplines — as well as in workplace skills such as Design Thinking. Most important, participants can earn IBM-branded digital credentials that are recognized by the market.

The enhanced partner version of IBM SkillsBuild may also include workshops, expert conversations with IBM coaches and mentors, project-based learning, access to IBM software, specialized support from partners through the learning process, and connection to career opportunities.

Additional Resources

• Read the complete findings from IBM Global Skills and Education Study here

• Individual country reports are available here

Contacts:

Estefania Sanchez
estefania.sanchez@ibm.com

Ari Fishkind
IBM Media Relations
fishkind@us.ibm.com

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-ibm-survey-reveals-the-greatest-perceived-barrier-to-professional-or-technical-skill-development-is-that-programs-are-too-expensive-301745631.html

SOURCE IBM

February 14, 2023, 01:50 PM EST

“We’re sharing a framework for what we see as opportunities for success,” Steve Sibley, IBM vice president of Power Systems offering management, tells CRN in an interview.

To Excellerate and simplify digital transformation adoption for partners and their customers, IBM has announced a series of updates for its Power product suite and promised more regular investment in areas where partners participate.

Those areas include containers, working with smaller businesses and more integrations with third-party vendors, Steve Sibley, IBM vice president of Power Systems offering management, told CRN in an interview.

“We’re sharing a framework for what we see as opportunities for success,” Sibley said. “And so helping our partners know where they can position Power is really important.”

[RELATED: IBM Introduces Partner Plus Program, Replacing PartnerWorld]

Upcoming IBM Power Updates

Updates due in the coming weeks include the ability for clients to modernize core banking workloads with Temenos Transact using OpenShift from IBM subsidiary Red Hat on Power10.

Use of containers for modernizing IT is “an area where we‘re looking for particularly service providers or partners who are investing in helping from a skill standpoint,” Sibley said.

“The key from a partner standpoint is we need them investing alongside us to help clients deploy those DevOps (development operations) environments, to understand how they manage OpenShift across a heterogeneous environment,” he said. “So that’s a key area we need our partners to invest alongside with us going forward.”

IBM is investing in more demonstrations and education of new technology for partners learning how to run report programming generator (RPG) on OpenShift, managing multi-cloud environments and other areas.

Another upcoming update is the roll out of a 24-core dual chip module on IBM Power S1014 for small and midsize customers running core workloads on Oracle Database Standard Edition 2 (SE2). The modules work for more applications as well, including IBM Db2.

According to IBM, Oracle Database SE2 on the S1014 has less total application cost per database instance compared to Intel’s fourth generation Xeon scalable processors and reduces the total number of servers needed for sustainability.

CRN has reached out to Intel for comment.

This and other offerings aimed at smaller businesses should help IBM’s ecosystem of resellers, managed services providers (MSPs) and other partner business types, Sibley said.

“Particularly the resellers and MSPs that are growing right and trying to fuel their business, they want to move beyond just the, ‘OK, I‘ll upgrade that client again (business)’ to the next generation.”

Accelerators built into every core also aim to Excellerate adoption of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) applications, such as pricing analytics and supply chain management, Sibley said.

Phil Godwin, president and chief operating officer of Addison, Texas-based IBM partner Clear Technologies – No. 469 on CRN’s 2022 Solution Provider 500 – told CRN in an interview that he saw “significant growth” with Power from 2021 to 2022.

“We’re seeing growth in two areas,” Godwin said. “One is the refresh business. And then we put a big focus on the SAP Hana space. So that‘s really what we’re seeing – competitive wins in the Hana space.”

Clear Technologies has invested in growing its security portfolio with IBM and other vendors and expects “significant growth” in that area in 2023, Godwin said. Security offerings should help Clear grow its small and midsize customer base as well.

“We built a pretty strong SDR program – a sales development rep program – so a lot of the focus that we‘re focused on is not only our current clients but really growing our client base,” he said.

IBM Power Updates Now Available

Already available updates for the Power suite include a subscription option for the Merlin modernization tool subscription, live partition mobility for the entire Power10 portfolio and scalable 2-to-6 terabyte (TB) bundles for SAP Hana on Power10. The pricing should come to about $20,000 a TB depending on configurations, Sibley said.

Also available are Hyper Protect Crypto Services for IBM’s Advanced Interactive Executive (AIX) proprietary Unix operating systems and Linux on Power Virtual Server, according to IBM.

Merlin, a shortened form of IBM i Modernization Engine for Lifecycle Integration, is a modernization and application development tool that now offers a subscription for customers, according to the Armonk, N.Y.-based vendor.

Developers building applications on IBM i with Merlin can access automated conversion of fixed-format to free-format report programming generator (RPG) and built-in security. The developers also gain access to Git, Jenkins and other modern development tools for faster provisioning, modernized apps, reduced time to market and a single pipeline for DevOps.

Live partition mobility with virtual persistent memory dynamically moves SAP workloads between systems while allowing fast SAP Hana restart with no additional cost. This feature aims to eliminate downtime for server maintenance.

The 2-to-6 TB bundles are aimed at customers with smaller SAP Hana workloads. The bundles are available through business partners and feature Power L1022 and Power L1024 servers, memory and services aimed at smaller Hana workloads, according to IBM.

SAP Hana is “a key area that we‘re seeing huge growth in from a power standpoint,” IBM’s Sibley told CRN. The bundles should also better compete against Intel and other vendors in the space while bringing larger enterprise level security to smaller companies, Sibley said.

Pricing offerings for lower market customers not only should entice those customers, but ones looking to save money in the high inflation environment, Sibley said.

“Our customers tend to, as the environment gets tougher from a financial standpoint, double down on what they know and what really works, which is good for us,” he said. “New customers, though, do kind of the same thing, there. They tend to buckle down into their own environments that they‘ve been used to. So we’re trying to penetrate that, some, with some of these offerings.”

And with IBM’s Hyper Protect Crypto Services for AIX and Linux on IBM Power Systems Virtual Server, users gain the ability to securely store and protect encryption key information for AIX and Linux. This integration aims to prevent the compromise of AIX file systems encryption and Linux Unified Key Setup (LUKS) encryption keys.

Hyper Protect Crypto Services is the single point of control for enabling or disabling data access across an enterprise, according to IBM.

Investment in the Power Systems Virtual Server speaks to customer desire for more IT as a service, Sibley said.

“We know more clients are moving in this direction of wanting to purchase in a flexible way, wanting partners – whether, again, it‘s the vendor or the MSP – doing more of the services and support for them, that’s a key strategic element you‘re going to hear more and more about from IBM through 2023,” he said. “But our key (message) is we need to do that with our partners.”

IBM is also investing in more demonstrations and education of new technology for partners learning how to run RPG on OpenShift, managing multi-cloud environments and other areas, he said.

IBM made its Power10 microprocessor family generally available in 2021. During the company’s latest quarterly earnings report in January, executives reported that Power helped fuel the 7 percent year over year constant currency revenue growth in IBM’s infrastructure segment.

Infrastructure brought in $4.5 billion during the quarter, which ended Dec. 31, according to IBM.

ChatGPT is the artificial intelligence language bot that’s been getting all kinds of press in 2023. However, when it comes to picking stocks, it can’t hold a candle to the AI-powered equity ETF run by ETF Managers Group.

The company was founded in 2014 when CEO Sam Masucci launched the business to help meet the need for thematic investing. Its first theme-based fund was the ETFMG Prime Junior Miners ETF (NYSEARCA:SILJ), which debuted in 2012. In May 2021, the ETF exceeded $1 billion in net assets.  

ETF Managers Group’s AI-Powered Equity ETF (NYSEARCA:AIEQ) hasn’t quite reached that level. Launched in October 2017, it has net assets of nearly $120 million. The actively managed fund uses the proprietary EquBot quantitative model developed by EquBot to pick U.S.-listed stocks. EquBot uses IBM’s (NYSE:IBM) Watson supercomputer to do all the heavy lifting. 

“Each day, the EquBot Model ranks each company based on the probability of the company benefiting from current economic conditions, trends, and world events and identifies approximately 30 to 200 companies with the greatest potential over the next twelve months for appreciation and their corresponding weights, targeting a maximum risk adjusted return versus the broader U.S. equity market,” states the fund’s prospectus.

The automated data-driven investment process eliminates bias and personal preferences from its stock selection. In 2023, AIEQ is up 14.9%, nearly double the S&P 500. 

 Here are three top buys from the market-beating AI-Powered Equity ETF. 

Celsius Holdings (CELH)

© Provided by Investorplace News A view of several cans of Celsius (CELH) energy drinks, on display at a local grocery store.

Celsius Holdings (NASDAQ:CELH) is AIEQ’s sixth-largest holding with a 2.1% weighting. However, the maker of energy drinks has seen a cooling off of its share price in 2023. It’s down around 5.7% year to date, but it remains up 83% over the past year. 

Wedbush Securities recently upgraded CELH stock to “outperform” with a $115 target price, 17% higher than where it’s currently trading.

“We believe that the recent pullback in shares (which are down over 18% since 1/17/23, due to a lawsuit that will ultimately have little to no impact on company fundamentals) creates an attractive entry point for investors looking to gain exposure to the best growth story in all of [consumer products],” Wedbush analyst Gerald Pascarelli said in a note to clients.

In October 2021, I suggested that Celsius was a stock to buy and hold for the next decade. While its shares slumped in early 2022, I remain confident that it’s an excellent long-term buy.  

In August, PepsiCo (NASDAQ:PEP) acquired an 8.5% stake in Celsius as part of a distribution partnership that saw the beverage giant become its U.S. distributor, with worldwide distribution in the future. 

With Pepsi in its corner, the sky’s the limit.

UnitedHealth Group (UNH)

© Provided by InvestorPlace The UnitedHealth (UNH) headquarters in Minnetonka, Minnesota.

Next up is the second-largest holding in the AI-Powered Equity ETF, UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH), with a 3.6% weighting. Of the three stocks on my list, this has to be viewed as the defensive position of the bunch. It’s done very little over the past 52 weeks, down 2%. While that’s better than the S&P 500, it’s not what shareholders have been accustomed to in recent years. 

UNH stock took a bit of dive early in February due to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ proposed Medicare Advantage rates for 2024. A core rate increase of 2.09% was lower than the average increase of 3.3% over the past five years. Wall Street was certainly not expecting such a low rate. But the final ruling doesn’t come until early April, so the rate may move higher by then. 

“While the result is disappointing, the industry has been the beneficiary of some healthy increases in recent years,” Oppenheimer analyst Michael Wiederhorn wrote in a note to clients. “Additionally, we note that over the last five years, the final rule has come in 1.0% better than the proposal, on average.”

So, I wouldn’t be too concerned if you are considering buying UNH stock. These things have a way of working themselves out. 

Mizuho Securities analyst Ann Hynes told her clients that the proposed increase will still allow UnitedHealth and its competitors “to continue to grow in the high-single digits.”

Analysts like UNH. Of the 26 covering it, 22 rate it “overweight” or “buy,” with no “underweight” or “sell” ratings. The average 12-month target price is $598.52, which is 26% higher than where it’s currently trading.

Roku (ROKU)

© Provided by Investorplace News Roku logo displayed on tv screen in modern living room

Roku (NASDAQ:ROKU), the eighth-largest holding in the AI-Powered Equity ETF at 1.9%, is performing well in 2023 following a tough 2022, during which the stock lost 82%. Up 54% year to date, the video streaming platform got some much-needed good news last week.

Warner Bros. Discovery (NYSE:WBD) will move its free, ad-supported television channels to the Roku Channel. Roku needs to add content to its homegrown channel to grow its advertising revenue. This deal allows it to do precisely that. 

The other big news from Roku in recent weeks is the company’s push into its own line of branded smart TVs. They are expected to be out at some point in 2023. This will be another way for it to generate platform revenue from the Roku Channel. At the same time, it will enable the company to test and introduce new features on Roku TVs, Roku VP of Marketing Dan Robbins told Fierce. 

Most importantly, with an ad platform and operating system purpose-built for TV streaming, advertisers will be more inclined to work with Roku to access this growing piece of the TV viewing audience. 

In early January, Roku announced its active accounts had surpassed 7o million, up more than 16% over the fourth quarter of 2021. In addition, its platform revenue grew 15% in Q3 2022 to $670.4 million, while its average revenue per user rose 10% to $44.25.

More active accounts multiplied by increased streaming hours on Roku Channel translates into significant revenues. Look for Roku to continue to innovate in 2023.     

On the date of publication, Will Ashworth did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.

Will Ashworth has written about investments full-time since 2008. Publications where he’s appeared include InvestorPlace, The Motley Fool Canada, Investopedia, Kiplinger, and several others in both the U.S. and Canada. He particularly enjoys creating model portfolios that stand the test of time. He lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – If “Terminator” were written today, why not put the artificial mind in the “cloud” where there’s no single point of failure, let along a “bare metal” host site subject to discovery and destruction? Such a Skynet creation could possibly survive damage unless the entire cloud infrastructure – and with it most if not all of the internet – were destroyed.

Not going to happen unless some “doomsdayers” decide to take man back to analog. Perish the thought!

Which brings us to Big Blue – not Big Brother – and its move to take artificial intelligence into the cloud minus all the hardware.

Yes, IBM (and let’s not leave out Red Hat, IBM’s core cloud player) has found another way to tout its cloud computing business by creating what it calls an artificial intelligence-focused supercomputer that exists in the cloud.

Rick Smith is editor and cofounder of WRAL TechWire

Called Vela (plural of the Roman word velum for sail), its existence – maybe a Skynet in the making since its AI? – the effort was unveiled by IBM Research in a blog post.

It’s intriguing, to say the least, given all the hype and frenzy around the emergence of AI-enabled chatbots such as ChatGPT. And the news comes in transformative times for IBM under Chair and CEO Arvind Krishna.

Although operational since May of 2022, Vela hasn’t been discussed much by Big Blue. Discussing it now makes sense as investment dollars flood into tech AI startups and Microsoft as well as Google prowl for AI opportunities. An interesting play: go cloud without lots of “bare metal” hardware – but why?

“Having the right tools and infrastructure is a critical ingredient for R&D productivity. Many teams choose to follow the ‘tried and true’ path of building traditional supercomputers for AI,” the IBM researchers wrote. “While there is clearly nothing wrong with this approach, we’ve been working on a better solution that provides the dual benefits of high-performance computing and high end-user productivity, enabled by a hybrid cloud development experience.  ^{Vela has been online since May 2022 and is in productive use by dozens of AI researchers at IBM Research, who are training models with tens of billions of parameters.”}

AI wars: These players are fighting for dominance among artificial mind chatbots

The researchers point out that before Vela “building a supercomputer has meant bare metal nodes, high-performance networking hardware (like InfiniBand, Omnipath, and Slingshot), parallel file systems, and other items usually associated with high-performance computing (HPC). But traditional supercomputers weren’t designed for AI; they were designed to perform well on modeling or simulation tasks, like those defined by the US national laboratories, or other customers looking to fulfill a certain need.”

Inside Vela

The IBMers point out what they see as cloud advantages.

In discussing Vela, IBM says “traditional design point has historically driven technology choices that increase cost and limit deployment flexibility. We’ve recently been asking ourselves: what system would we design if we were exclusively focused on large-scale AI?

“This led us to build IBM’s first AI-optimized, cloud-native supercomputer, Vela. It has been online since May of 2022, housed within IBM Cloud, and is currently just for use by the IBM Research community. The choices we’ve made with this design supply us the flexibility to scale up at will and readily deploy similar infrastructure into any IBM Cloud data center across the globe.  Vela is now our go-to environment for IBM Researchers creating our most advanced AI capabilities, including our work on foundation models and is where we collaborate with partners to train models of many kinds.”

IBM transformation continues: 30th buy in CEO’s brief tenure is software startup

Other AI supercomputer developments

IBM is not alone in building AI supercomputers, however.

“Last year, Microsoft unveiled its own platform using Azure infrastructure combined with Nvidia’s GPU accelerators, network kit, and its AI Enterprise software suite. This was expected to be available for Azure customers to access, but no time frame was specified,” tech news site The Register points out. It says Meta and Tesla also have AI projects but both follow  “the traditional on-premises infrastructure route, include Meta and Tesla.”

For more details, read the full blog post.

As for Skynet, maybe James Cameron will revisit doomsday after he wraps up the Avatar franchise.

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Rick Smith is cofounder and editor of WRAL TechWire.

GraphQL, developed internally at Facebook to help developers with API management before getting rolled out as an open source query language in 2015, has gained traction as an alternative (or complement) to REST and other tools. Airbnb, Pinterest, PayPal and of course Facebook parent Meta are among the companies using it. Now, to raise its profile with developers adopting it, IBM has acquired a GraphQL startup called StepZen, which provides tools for those working in hybrid cloud environments to build and scale GraphQL deployments to pull data from disparate sources.

The financial terms of the deal are not being disclosed. StepZen was founded in 2020 by the same people who started Apigee (which Google acquired for $625 million in 2016), and it appears to have raised just $8 million since that time (and the last time it raised was in 2020). This is IBM’s first acquisition of 2023, and StepZen and its team will become a part of IBM’s Software unit, said Kareem Yusuf, the unit’s SVP of product management and growth.

StepZen’s customers include DataStax, Komex and HP Enterprise.

The startup’s premise is that the state of data and how it is stored and used today has become very complex with the move to the cloud, and considering that many are still working in hybrid architectures.

Stored in warehouses, lakes, multiple public and private clouds, and on premises, pulling that data and using it from across disparate locations requires APIs. GraphQL is one of the languages built for that, creating a simplified way to make those various data calls from a single API.

“This simplicity is why the popularity and usage of GraphQL is growing quickly,” writes Yusuf.

But as some have pointed out, GraphQL can be a complicated framework, and in fact some features of it go unused as a result. StepZen, in short, provides a way to engage with and use GraphQL more easily.

Yet there has been a split opinion on just how widely used GraphQL is today. One survey I saw from 2019 notes that around 38% of developers have adopted it to pull data from multiple sources. Yusuf cites stats from Gartner that say that less than 10% of enterprises (not developers) were using GraphQL in 2021.

Still, the Gartner analysts predict that this figure will bump up to 50% by 2025, which is one reason why IBM has picked up StepZen and wants to become a more active provider in this space.

In its last earnings, IBM announced — in line with a lot of what we’ve seen across all of the technology sector — that it would be streamlining its workforce and cutting some 3,900 jobs, or 1.5% of its headcount. Software these days accounts for more than half the company’s revenues, and it’s one of the company’s bright spots in terms of growth. In the last quarter it posted sales of $7.3 billion from software out of overall revenue of $16.7 billion, with software growing 3% while overall revenue was flat.

StepZen is a sign of how the company is investing in what’s working for it right now, and how it’s looking to get a jump on what it will need to continue that growth in the future.