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 device and its data are self-contained in a space that could accommodate 10 refrigerators.
Watson's key components include:
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 device and its data are self-contained in a space that could accommodate 10 refrigerators.
Watson's key components include:
- Apache UIMA (Unstructured Information Management Architecture) 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.
- 500 gigabytes of preprocessed information.
IBM'sDeepQA software, which is designed for information retrieval that incorporates natural language processing and machine learning.
