UPDATED 18:04 EDT / MAY 05 2020

CLOUD

IBM CEO says pandemic will be a turning point for digital transformation

In a keynote address that was light on specifics but long on intentions, new IBM Corp. Chief Executive Arvind Krishna today promised to make IBM more responsive to the industries in which its customers operate, easier to work with and dedicated to developing technologies and services for hybrid cloud and artificial intelligence.

Krishna, who was appointed to the CEO position just weeks before coronavirus shutdowns began around the world, used his keynote address to the IBM Think Digital conference to term the COVID-19 pandemic a “critical turning point.”

“I think we’ll look back on this time and say that this was when digital transformation accelerated,” he said. “Transformation journeys that were going to last years are now being compacted into months.”

He called hybrid cloud and artificial intelligence “the two dominant forces driving digital transformation.” In comments that were likely aimed at cloud rival Amazon Web Services Inc., he said IBM’s hybrid cloud philosophy is “you rarely start from scratch; it’s about meeting you wear you are at in terms of the infrastructure choices you’ve made and where you will do computing in the future.”

The CEO hailed the value that the Red Hat Inc. acquisition has brought to the company with its OpenShift technology, which enables applications to be built once and run across a combination of private and public cloud infrastructure.

“Relying on only one infrastructure or cloud locks you in,” he said, in another apparent reference to Amazon. “Hybrid cloud is about giving you the choice to host your own software one day, move it to a cloud provider the next day and later to someone else.”

Although the pandemic has highlighted some of the weaknesses of global supply chains, it has also magnified the importance of what Krishna called the “data supply chain” enabled by standards, interoperability and scalable platforms. “If there’s anything COVID-19 has taught us, it is that choosing technology platforms to run your business is the most critical decision you can make,” he said.

Krishna gave over several minutes of his keynote to an interview with Rajeev Ronanki, chief digital officer at healthcare Anthem Inc. Ronanki told how his company is using analytics to transform its business from healthcare insurer to healthcare provider.

IBM’s CEO also cited the Watson AIOps platform introduced today that uses machine learning to detect, diagnose and respond to IT anomalies automatically in real time as an example of how AI should be regarded as a technology that extends human capabilities rather than replaces them.

“I’m predicting that every company will become an AI company not because they can but because they must,” he said. “AI is the only way to scale expertise.”

Photo: SiliconANGLE

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