IBM recently announced a strategic collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to integrate the full portfolio of IBM’s watsonx artificial intelligence (AI) and data platform with AWS services.
The newly announced partnership will facilitate the scaling of AI in enterprises through an open, hybrid approach with comprehensive end-to-end governance. This includes the integration of IBM watsonx.governance with Amazon SageMaker. Amazon SageMaker is designed to build, train, and deploy machine learning (ML) and generative AI models using fully managed infrastructure, tools, and workflows.
"IBM's open AI and hybrid cloud strategy is critical to helping businesses get value from AI, with their own trusted data, no matter what technology they use or where they're using it," said Ritika Gunnar, General Manager, Product Management, Data and AI, IBM. "Watsonx.governance enables them to manage and govern their AI solutions in an automated way, with the ability to customize solutions to their unique needs as they bring on more AI capability and respond to evolving AI regulations around the world. Our expanded relationship with AWS combines IBM's leading AI governance with Amazon SageMaker, offering customers flexibility, scalability, and integration with other AWS services."
With the new integration, customers can better manage model risk and comply with regulatory requirements such as the EU AI Act. With watsonx.governance, users can also configure and track customizable risk assessment and model approval workflows, creating an audit trail in both watsonx and Amazon SageMaker.
By combining the capabilities of watsonx.governance and Amazon SageMaker it is possible to not only streamline workflows and accelerate AI initiatives, but also makes it possible to manage AI across complex IT environments.
"Our collaboration with IBM will bring even more generative AI solutions to our mutual customers," said Ankur Mehrotra, General Manager of Amazon SageMaker at AWS. "By combining the strengths of Amazon SageMaker and watsonx.governance, we are empowering businesses to leverage generative AI effectively and securely, drive workflow improvements, and ultimately deliver greater value. We look forward to continuing to innovate together on meaningful AI solutions for our customers."
The watsonx.data open data lakehouse on AWS enables customers to access data across hybrid environments, including Db2 Warehouse, Netezza, Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) for Db2, and AWS services such as Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3).
IBM’s broader offerings on AWS Marketplace include 44 listings, 29 SaaS offerings, and 15 services available across 92 countries.
Additionally, IBM Consulting is expanding its expertise in generative AI focused on AWS. With the integration of watsonx.governance and Amazon SageMaker, IBM Consulting will help clients establish responsible AI frameworks, manage model risk, demonstrate regulatory compliance, and monitor model performance across their enterprises.
"Balancing the rapid progression of generative AI with growing governance and regulatory concerns is a delicate challenge all organizations are concerned about," said Chris Konow, CEO CleanSlate Technology Group, a cloud consulting company and AWS and IBM Business Partner. "The ability to seamlessly combine the power of AWS SageMaker with watsonx.governance will help address governance at the very foundation layer of AI projects."
Edited by
Greg Tavarez
