IBM’s Watson to join research team at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

IBM is providing a modified version of an IBM Watson system to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, making it the first university to receive such a system, to undertake leading-edge research, and afford faculty and students an opportunity to find new uses for Watson and deepen the systems' cognitive capabilities.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, founded in 1824, is the oldest technological research university in the United States.

The first-hand experience of working on the system will also better position Rensselaer students as future leaders in the areas of 'big data', analytics, and cognitive computing.

Known to many as the IBM innovation that beat Jeopardy!'s all-time champions, Watson has a unique ability to understand the subtle nuances of human language, sift through vast amounts of data, and provide evidence-based answers to its human users' questions.

Currently, Watson's fact-finding prowess is being applied to crucial fields, such as healthcare, where IBM is collaborating with medical providers, hospitals and physicians to help doctors analyse a patient's history, symptoms and the latest news and medical literature to help physicians make faster, more accurate diagnoses. IBM is also working with financial institutions to help improve and simplify the banking experience.

The leadership of Rensselaer faculty in web science, big data, artificial intelligence, and other research areas uniquely situates the university to help expand Watson's abilities.