That is a weird setting, but that might be the case for a lot of people. It is the Financial Express who gives us (at https://www.financialexpress.com/life/technology-ibm-to-skill-5-million-indian-youth-in-ai-cybersecurity-and-quantum-computing-by-2030-details-inside-4082018/) the headline ‘IBM to skill 5 million Indian youth in AI, cybersecurity and quantum computing by 2030’ you might think it is nothing to get hung over about, but you would be wrong. Even as some ‘claim’ to give good courses (some actually do), it is IBM who has had that inside track in several ways. As such (or perhaps to consider as I see it), the labour market will be drowning in Indian entrepreneurs by 2032 (and a whole before that). I reckon that these people will bolster the Indian go getter market and they will branch out to Saudi Arabia, the UAE and a few other places. As such if you think the US labour market is merely cooling, think again. These people will be highly wanted in India, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, UK, Australia, Canada and the EU long before we get to 2030. There will be an Indian wave of go getters all over the world and the places that needed to get active weren’t for much too long. So as we see “India possesses the talent and ambition to lead the world in AI & Quantum. Fluency in frontier technologies will define economic competitiveness, scientific progress and societal transformation,” said Arvind Krishna, IBM Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. “Our commitment to skill five million people is an investment in that future. By democratizing access to advanced skills, we are enabling the youth and students to build, innovate and accelerate India’s growth.”” And these people will be highly skilled in all things IBM (perhaps not in IBM Statistics or IBM Miner) but that is little cause for alarm. These people will also bring forth IBM skills and products, so this setting takes care of two pipelines, skills and products. And all that time AWS was hounding the AI field. It is nice, but as these people are highly skilled in whatever IBM holds, there is a mismatch on what is required. OK, that last part is speculative, but that is what I would do.
I reckon that Microsoft and OpenAI also might have a problem here. You see we also get “IBM also continues to strengthen school-level readiness by co-developing the AI curriculum for senior secondary students, along with teaching resources including the AI Project Cookbook, Teacher Handbook and explainer modules. These programs are designed to embed computational thinking and responsible AI principles early, while enabling teachers to deliver AI education confidently and at scale.” As such these people get a schooling in evolved from famous systems like Deep Blue and Watson and as such IBM provides a flexible ecosystem allowing choice from various foundation models (like Granite, Llama, Mistral). Whatever they partnered with doesn’t matter. This is the IBM show, partners take a second stage chair. And as I see it, IBM did something nicely spectacular because they get a choir of 5 million evangelizing Watsoners all over the world and in that instance Watson grows from niche to mainstream and that will feel good for all the shareholders who kept their trust in Arvind Krishna (I will give a nice ‘Well done sir’) in this instance. Because it is starting to look like the old premise ‘When two dogs fight over a bone, the third one takes it gone’ So in the fight we saw with OpenAI and Google, we now see that the future is banked on by IBM. This doesn’t make the others useless in any way, but IBM set the future towards Watson in a rather nice way and that has to count for something.
What a nice end of year this will be this year. Because at the drop of a hat, it wasn’t merely Google or OpenAI, as I see it now IBM because the third major player in this duet and as I see innovation, this is how innovative strides are made, by having to refocus your tasks, that is the real innovation maker in this world.
A lovely ending to Christmas Day. Have a great upcoming boxing day you all.
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 