IBM Watson Developer Cloud offers self-service artificial intelligence and development tools

IBM set to extend Watson platform to offer developers new APIs and technologies

IBM is set to extend its Watson platform to offer developers a new set of cognitive APIs, technologies and artificial intelligence tools through the Watson Developer Cloud.

The company said developers creating products, services and applications embedded with Watson will be able to use the Watson Developer Cloud to use an expanded set of cognitive APIs, technologies and tools, including artificial intelligence.

IBM's Watson supercomputer is best known in enterprise circles for helping scientific research by analysing big data in the cloud, but the company is keen for it to be used for as many applications as possible.

"Today we are announcing the release of new and enhanced Watson cognitive services across four areas: Language, Vision, Speech and Data Insights," IBM senior data scientist and managing consultant Manish Goyal wrote in a blog post.

"These services use advanced artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning approaches to enable new opportunities to understand and engage users, and leverage the massive growth of unstructured data in multiple formats: text, speech, photos and videos," he added.

Expansion of the Watson Developer Cloud enables developers to "engage users with cognitive APIs" and "gain more insights from unstructured text, video, photos and speech". Other new capabilities include advanced language, speech, and vision services, and developer tools.

Goyal explained how these types of applications can bring benefits to IBM Watson customers and developers.

"Watson services break down the barriers to analysing unstructured data with powerful cognitive capabilities available to all. With the release of these services, we are addressing needs expressed by individual developers, start-ups, and large enterprises," he said.

The new tools will be offered to users through the IBM Watson Developer Cloud, a self-service platform offering APIs that "make it possible for any developer to leverage the power of artificial intelligence and deep machine learning capabilities across text, speech and image analytics".

IBM also announced that the company intends to expand its presence in Silicon Valley with a new cognitive computing hub in San Francisco. The new Watson Hub is scheduled to open in early 2016.

"Since introducing the Watson development platform, thousands of people have used these technologies in new and inventive ways, and many have done so without extensive experience as a coder or data scientist," said Mike Rhodin, senior vice president, IBM Watson, speaking on the launch of the new Watson Develop Cloud services.

"We believe that by opening Watson to all, and continuously expanding what it can do, we are democratizing the power of data, and with it innovation," he added.