SINGAPORE: IBM announces plans to assist clients of different sizes in the Asia Pacific region in the rapid prototyping and commercialization of solutions based on cognitive computing and blockchain.  IBM states the decision is on the basis of helping organizations in Asia leverage disruptive technology to improve business.

To foster the adoption of cognitive computing and blockchain technology in Asia, IBM also announces the opening of the Watson Centre at Marina Bay in Singapore. The centre is an incubator to consolidate different business partners, organizations and IBM experts to collectively create business solutions, leveraging IBM’s cognitive, blockchain and design capabilities.

The centre will also host clients in the Asia Pacific looking to utilize Watson technology; which reasons, improves through learning, and discovers insights hidden in large amounts of complex data.

The Watson Centre will also act as a center of expertise for 5,000 IBM cognitive solutions professionals in the APAC. These professionals include researchers, IBM Watson specialists, data scientists, software engineers, agile developers and analytics experts. The centre will additionally offer education, hackathons, and customisedworkshops for a broader ecosystem of innovators including software companies, startups, developers and systems integrators.

To encourage the use of blockchain in Asia, IBM through its IBM Garage and the IBM Global Entrepreneur program will accelerate the development, design and commercialization of Singapore blockchain applications.

At the IBM Garage, experts collaborate with clients, developers and entrepreneurs to test-drive tools, processes, and procedures to make Blockchain real. The garage creates a bridge between the scale of enterprise and culture of startups and supports the development of an Open Standards based Blockchain ecosystem and creates new work opportunities in Singapore.

The IBM Global Entrepreneur Programme helps startups and entrepreneurs who are building new generation of distributed ledger applications on the Blockchain harness the power of IBM Cloud, as well as connect and embed them into IBM's vast global network of enterprise clients, consultants and Innovation Centres to rapidly build, scale quickly and accelerate growth.

The Watson Centre at Marina Bay will also host IBM Studios – Singapore, a new center that will blend experience design and digital expertise to support customer innovation.  With this Studio, IBM will help Asia Pacific clients analyze business challenges and develop solutions grounded in more individualized digital experiences through a combination of IBM’s research technology, cognitive capabilities and experience design.

"Watson and blockchain are two technologies that will rapidly change the way we live and work, and our clients in Asia Pacific are eager to lead the way in envisioning and creating that future,” says Randy Walker, Chairman and CEO, IBM Asia Pacific. “Here they can leverage the latest in customer experience design, use cognitive technology to draw insight from vast quantities of data, and draw on IBM's huge investments in research and development. In partnership with our clients we are nurturing local talent and building an ecosystem to accelerate the development of cognitive solutions and blockchain platforms.”