Watson is an IBM supercomputer that combines artificial intelligence (AI) and sophisticated analytical software for optimal performance as a "question answering" machine. The supercomputer is named for IBM's founder, Thomas J. Watson.
The Watson supercomputer processes at a rate of 80 teraflops (trillion floating point operations per second). To replicate (or surpass) a high-functioning human's ability to answer questions, Watson accesses 90 servers with a combined data store of over 200 million pages of information, which it processes against six million logic rules. The system and its data are self-contained in a space that could accommodate 10 refrigerators.
Watson's key components include:
- Apache Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA) frameworks, infrastructure and other elements required for the analysis of unstructured data.
- Apache's Hadoop, a free, Java-based programming framework that supports the processing of large data sets in a distributed computing environment.
- SUSE Enterprise Linux Server 11, the fastest available Power7 processor operating system.
- 2,880 processor cores.
- 15 terabytes (TB) of RAM.
- 500 gigabytes (GB) of preprocessed information.
- IBM's DeepQA software, which is designed for information retrieval that incorporates natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning.
How IBM's Watson supercomputer works.
Applications for Watson's underlying cognitive computing technology are almost endless. Because the device can perform text mining and complex analytics on huge volumes of unstructured data, it can support a search engine or an expert system with capabilities far superior to any previously existing.
In May 2016, BakerHostetler, an Ohio-based law firm, signed a contract for a legal expert system based on Watson to work with its 50-person bankruptcy team. That system, called Ross, can mine data from about a billion text documents, analyze the information and provide precise responses to complicated questions in less than three seconds. Natural language processing allows the system to translate legalese to respond to the lawyers' questions.
As Ross' creators add more legal modules, similar expert systems are transforming medical research.
Watson in healthcare
Healthcare was one of the first industries to which Watson technology was applied. The first commercial implementation of Watson came in 2013 when the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center began using the system to recommend treatment options for lung cancer patients to ensure they received the right treatment while reducing costs. Since that time, providers such as Cleveland Clinic, Maine Center for Cancer Medicine and Westmed Medical Group have also implemented Watson tools.
However, not every implementation has gone smoothly. The MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston launched a project in 2013 to build a decision support system powered by Watson technology to help doctors determine the best treatment options. But after spending more than $62 million on the project over the course of four years, hospital administrators canceled the project, saying it had failed to meet its goals.
Healthcare remains a primary focal point for IBM as it tries to prove Watson technology, and the company continues to forge partnerships with healthcare organizations. In May 2018, for example, India's largest specialty healthcare systems, Apollo, agreed to adopt Watson for Oncology and Watson for Genomics. The two IBM cognitive computing platforms will help doctors make decisions for personalized cancer care.
IBM's use of Watson to solve some of the biggest problems around patient care and using data-driven insights to recommend treatment options would prove the value of Watson technologies.