The centerpiece of the second day at IBM Corp.’s major gathering in Las Vegas this week was an address by Ginni Rometty, chairman, president and chief executive officer of IBM, who methodically outlined a vision for the company based on a theme of “Putting Smarter to Work.” The focus was on IBM’s intelligent software and data management as the core strategic drivers, with the blockchain providing a cutting-edge infrastructure.

“You’ve got data at the center, blockchain on one side and artificial intelligence on the other,” said John Furrier (@furrier, pictured, right), co-host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio. “It’s the innovation sandwich.”

Furrier and co-host Dave Vellante (@dvellante, pictured, left) discussed the key events going on at IBM Think. They discussed the need for cloud to enable innovation at scale, strategic similarities between Oracle Corp. and IBM, and the constant threat of disruption. (* Disclosure below.)

Leveraging AI and blockchain

Participants in Rometty’s presentation included cloud partners Verizon Communications Inc. and Maersk Inc., incumbent global businesses that have a keen interest in leveraging innovative technologies, such as AI and the blockchain to defend against disruptors.

“The other piece of that sandwich, maybe it’s the dressing on top, is the cloud,” Vellante said. “You have to have scale and network effects in order to achieve that innovation.”

The release of Oracle’s quarterly earnings on Monday created buzz in the conference hallways after results disappointed Wall Street expectations for cloud growth. Nevertheless, Rometty outlined an ambitious multicloud strategy.

“IBM and Oracle are similar, because they are basically cloudifying their business,” Vellante said. “They’re allowing their clients to onboard customers to the cloud, putting their application portfolios, their software as a service products and their middleware into the cloud.”

The question will be whether major incumbents, such as Verizon, Maersk and even IBM, can innovate quickly enough using technologies like cognitive computing and the blockchain to avoid being disrupted themselves. “At the end of the day, they’ve got to look back and learn from the internet era,” Furrier said. “If you don’t jump on these next waves, you could be driftwood.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of IBM Think. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for IBM Think. Neither IBM, the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE