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International Business Machines Corp. Acquires AlchemyAPI

Apr. 02, 2015 4:24 AM ETIBM
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Tech giant plans to use AlchemyAPI's expertise in improving its artificial intelligence system, Watson

International Business Machines Corp. has announced in IBM latest news that it has acquired AlchemyAPI to improve its artificial intelligence project, Watson. The price for the deal has not been announced.

AlchemyAPI is a provider of machine learning technology, which allows for analyzing and identifying data, such as texts and pictures. The company states that its list of clients is spread over 36 countries. These clients include big businesses, websites etc.

IBM plans to use these tools to enhance the system's learning ability and to make it similar to a human's thinking pattern. This will allow the computer to better perform its tasks and learn from them in a more efficient manner. This means that more tasks the computer performs, smarter it gets.

Purchasing AlchemyAPI would also provide IBM with access to tens of thousands developers, who use the company's technology in creating tools. IBM Watson Group Vice President, Stephen Gold said that the purchase will add to the services provided by Watson, and with help of over 40,000 developers, they will be able to advance their project.

However, getting the technical expertise of the company might not be only reason IBM has bought it. AlchemyApI has been growing at a rapid pace and has already earned quite a stellar reputation for its products. The company has been praised highly by several tech experts. It was indeed on its way to become a major competitor to IBM's artificial intelligence project.

IBM is betting big on Watson's success, and is investing $1 billion to further develop the computer. The company believes that with the advancements in the field, it would soon be providing services to various sectors such as education, banking, health care etc.

The tech giant is not the only company which has shown interest in the artificial intelligence technology. Major tech companies like Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. have also invested in similar projects.

In other IBM news, on March 2, 2015 it was reported that a lawsuit was brought against the company is to be sued by one of its institutional shareholders, the City of Sterling Heights Police & Fire Retirement System, over the sale of one of its semiconductor units that the group deems to have been misstated in the company's financial statements.

The lawsuit is filed in the US Federal Court in Manhattan, New York, as IBM is set to off load GlobalFoundries U.S. Inc., by paying $1.5 billion to a qualifying buyer as the semiconductor unit was going in loss. The plaintiff also claims that the chip making giant had to incur a total cost of $4.7 billion before tax - to get rid of the deal.

The plaintiff also claims that IBM had recorded the wrong amount on its financial statements, as the value for vital assets was at $2.4 billion. As a result, the swelling share prices had misled the investors. The shareholder had identified that interested bidders were unwilling to go up $1 billion mark for the entire unit, including intangible assets as well, suggesting that the semiconductor unit had a misleading value.

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