UPDATED 12:57 EDT / NOVEMBER 15 2016

NEWS

GE buying spree continues with AI, Internet of Things startups

Right on the heels of announcing one major acquisition, the $915 million buy of ServiceMax Inc., General Electric Corp. today added not one but two other acquisitions: machine learning startup Wise.io and data intelligence company Bit Stew Systems.

Wise.io specializes in predictive intelligence, which uses machine learning to anticipate upcoming events. The startup’s technology was initially used by astrophysicists to better understand rare stellar phenomena, but today Wise.io’s platform is used primarily for predicting and dealing with customer support issues. Wise.io’s algorithms anticipate high support request volume and smartly distributes tickets to deal with issues proactively.

According to GE, Wise.io’s technology will be folded into Predix, GE’s cloud-based Platform-as-a-Service that is used for industrial analytics and asset performance management. GE Chief Information Officer says that Wise.io’s machine learning technology will provide an enormous boost to GE’s own work in artificial intelligence for Predix.

Meanwhile, GE’s other acquisition, Bit Stew, provides a data intelligence platform powered by machine learning, which integrates data between industrial connected devices and external systems. Like Wise.io, Bit Stew’s platform will also be funneled into Predix.

“We are pleased to welcome Bit Stew to the GE Digital family. The integration of our technologies will provide the Predix platform with a greater capability to integrate data while it is in motion from the edge to the cloud,” said Harel Kodesh, CTO at GE Digital. “This combination will help us to accelerate our industrial offerings, providing customers with contextual understanding of their assets and operations.”

GE did not reveal how much it paid for Wise.io or Bit Stew, but the Vancouver Sun reported that the acquisition price for Bit Stew was over $207 million. Combined with the ServiceMax deal, this shows that GE is serious about beefing up Predix and making it the go-to Platform-as-a-Service for industrial applications.

GE’s Minds + Machines event this week in San Francisco will look at the current state of IoT. SiliconANGLE’s video unit theCUBE will be at the event to do exclusive interviews with GE and other executives.

Photo by UpstateNYerOwn work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

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