IBM announced the creation of a venture fund — IBM Enterprise AI Venture Fund — worth $500 million, focused on artificial intelligence projects.
“[The organization] will invest in current and future AI leaders who help businesses worldwide realise the potential of the technology for business,” according to the press release.
IBM is the sole investor in the Enterprise AI Venture Fund.
Rob Thomas, IBM’s senior vice president of software and chief commercial officer, projects that by 2030 the AI industry will reach about $16 trillion.
He also added that the fund intends to use the launched in May platform watsonx. The development is intended to help companies integrate AI into their business to manage data.
According to the company, watsonx can be used to train large language models, deploy AI algorithms, and automatically generate code.
IBM has reiterated its long-standing commitment to technology development. For example, in August the company announced participation in a $235 million Series D funding round for the Hugging Face startup — a platform for collaboration with open-source software and machine learning.
The firm also became one of the investors in a $50 million Series A for the HiddenLayer project. It is a provider of AI security software.
In June, OpenAI established a $1 million grant program for AI-based cybersecurity technologies.