Wall Street Journal excerpts, 9/24/15

International Business Machines Corp. announced a new San Francisco location for its artificial intelligence unit Watson, signaling an expansion of the business widely known for its artificial intelligence that beat human contestants on the “Jeopardy” quiz show.

The new California location is the second for Watson, which has been based in New York City.

In addition, IBM said Watson was expanding its product offerings to developers who use the platform to build apps and roll out new business functionality across industries from health care and retail to wine-buying. The upgrades include new speech, language and vision tools that IBM said will help organizations tap what is projected to be a $143 billion app market next year.

After Watson’s “Jeopardy” success in 2011, IBM moved to commercialize the system which has differentiated itself from other analytical software in its ability to “learn.” For example, the company has been testing Watson with researchers at Cleveland Clinic, among others, and has hoped Watson will learn to interpret imagery, medical records and other data to reveal patterns relevant to diagnosis and treatment that a human physician may miss.

On Thursday, IBM said about 100 of its Watson partners, including developers at startups and established businesses, have introduced cognitive enabled apps, products and services into the market.