IBM

IBM announces global Call for Code artificial intelligence hackathon winners

The global hackathon, now in its sixth year, gives participants access to advanced AI, cloud computing and blockchain technology.

The David Clark Cause, IBM, the United Nations Human Rights Office of the Commissioner and the Linux Foundation announced the winners of the 2023 Call for Code hackathon on Dec. 6.

Call for Code is the largest annual event of its kind, gathering participants from more than 180 nations who have produced a collective 24,000 applications to date, according to the David Clark Cause.

This year’s contest focused on solving “the most pressing global issues of our time” using available technologies, including IBM’s generative artificial intelligence (AI) service, watsonx. It included grand prizes awarded in three separate participant categories: developer, university and independent vendor/startup.

IBM, Meta and others form ‘AI Alliance’ to advance AI development

In a joint statement, IBM and Meta outlined the AI Alliance’s objectives, emphasizing a commitment to safety, collaboration, diversity, economic opportunity and universal benefits.

In the race for market supremacy among artificial intelligence (AI) firms, a coalition of technology leaders spearheaded by IBM and Meta established the AI Alliance. Rather than competing, these companies aim to collaborate, emphasizing their commitment to fostering transparent innovation and responsible development in artificial intelligence.

In a joint statement, IBM and Meta outlined the AI Alliance’s objectives, emphasizing a commitment to safety, collaboration, diversity, economic opportunity and universal benefits. The alliance, they noted, encompasses a collective annual research and development investment exceeding $80 billion.

While numerous members endorse open-source development, adherence to this model is not obligatory for membership. Over 50 tech companies, such as AMD, Dell Technologies, Red Hat, Sony Group, Hugging Face, Stability AI, Oracle and the Linux Foundation, have joined with IBM and Meta in the AI Alliance.

IBM unveils new air-gapped cold storage solution for digital assets

The new system works a lot like a time delay safe for digital assets with a policy engine to broker communications.

IBM announced the launch of IBM Hyper Protect Offline Signing Orchestrator (OSO), an air-gapped cold storage solution for digital assets, on Dec. 5.

Working with digital asset manager Metaco — an IBM partner and Ripple subsidiary — and tier-1 banks, IBM developed the end-to-end asset encryption service to address common vulnerabilities found in typical cold storage solutions.

According to the announcement:

IBM says it will have hit a quantum computing ‘inflection point’ by 2029

Big Blue’s roadmap says it’s on pace to execute 100 million gates over 200 qubits in 2029 before a 10x improvement by 2033.

IBM announced the unveiling of its 1,121-qubit “Condor” quantum computing processor on Dec.

Alongside the new chip, IBM delivered an updated roadmap and a trove of information on the company’s planned endeavors in the quantum computing space.

The Condor quantum processor

The 1,121-qubit processor represents the apex of IBM’s previous roadmap.

In quantum computing terms, qubit count isn’t necessarily a measure of power or capability so much as it is potential.

Currently, IBM considers its experiments with 100-qubit systems to be the status quo, with much of the current work focused on increasing the number of quantum gates processors can function with.

“For the first time,” writes IBM fellow and vice president of quantum computing Jay Gambetta in a recent blog post, “we have hardware and software capable of executing quantum circuits with no known a priori answer at a scale of 100 qubits and 3,000 gates.”

2029: A quantum inflection point

Gates, like qubits, are a potential measure of the usefulness of a quantum system.

The next major “inflection point,” per the blog post, will occur in 2029 when IBM will execute “100 million gates over 200 qubits” with a processor it’s calling “Starling.”

The IBM–Maersk blockchain effort was doomed to fail from the start

Observers can learn a few things from the failed effort by IBM and Moller-Maersk to develop TradeLens, a blockchain-enabled global trading platform.

Blockchain projects continue to experience failure rates in excess of 90%, and it seems that with every passing moment, more and more “successful” companies add their underperforming blockchain project to the graveyard. One of the most recent blockchain failure victims was Moller-Maersk, which recently announced the termination of its highly publicized TradeLens offering — a global trade platform built on IBM blockchain technology.

These failures, however, were totally predictable and, in many cases, would be avoidable if companies more closely observed certain lessons in innovation diffusion.

Lesson 1: Innovation is not monolithic. One of the biggest mistakes companies make is to treat innovation as a monolithic concept. Innovation is anything but monolithic. Unfortunately, business associations, business media and business schools love to create an endless parade of innovation lists and innovation awards that reinforce the idea that all innovation is the same.

Clayton Christensen’s New York Times best-selling book, The Innovator’s Dilemma, was one of the first major attempts to distinguish innovation types. His work was helpful in starting the conversation, but a better framework for categorizing innovation comes from Rebecca Henderson and Kim Clark, who identified four types of innovation: incremental, modular, architectural and radical.

While there are innovations that may fit in the modular and architectural category, blockchain is, at its core, disruptive. Given that disruptive technologies replace existing frameworks, interactions and intermediate institutions, the most successful early applications and innovations will come from smaller/startup firms rather than IBM, Maersk or other Fortune 100 companies.

Lesson 2: Complexity is an innovation killer. This is especially true for modular and radical innovation. Everett Rogers noted the inverse relationship between complexity and the willingness and ability to adopt an innovation. This complexity not only relates to the blockchain application itself but also to internal decision-making processes, the level of change required to adopt and how much new knowledge is needed to implement.

Details of IBM-Maersk’s canceled plan to build a blockchain platform. Source: IBM-Maersk

Experts have outlined the difficulty of implementing projects like TradeLens, as “the technology is complex, requires more computing power and is more expensive to run than existing databases.” Adding to the complexity of the IBM–Maersk blockchain shipment project was the highly complex nature of the two large multinational corporations.

In the last round of major technological innovation — namely, the social media space — it was not the established players that built the tools, technology, platforms, etc., that drove early innovation and adoption. It was startups — organizations where decision-making cycles were short, minimal internal change was required to adapt, and new knowledge could be assimilated almost instantaneously.

Given these dynamics, initial successful innovative breakthroughs for blockchain are more likely to be found in simplistic applications developed by much smaller, more entrepreneurial firms that replace or reshape simple processes around how work gets done, products get made, or transactions are facilitated between two parties.

Lesson 3: Different innovation types require different levels of risk tolerance. One of the key differentiators between the four types of innovation is the risk tolerance required to be an effective innovator. The risk-tolerance level for incremental innovation is low, while radical innovation requires a significantly higher risk tolerance.

An important note is that tolerance here is not just looking at the risk or probability that a project might fail. Assessing innovation risk also looks at the likelihood of catastrophic failure for the entire organization — meaning if the adoption or innovation fails, the entire organization risks failing, not just the innovation.

Billy Beane’s application of sabermetrics to the roster construction and management of the Oakland Athletics in the early 2000s is a well-known example of a modular innovation application. This innovation posed a high personal and organizational risk that no other major league team was willing to take.

Failure for the team would not have been catastrophic (i.e., the team ceasing to be a major league franchise). However, the costs would have been extremely high. Beane would have lost his job (as well as many others). A dissatisfied fan base would have punished the team by staying home and ceasing apparel purchases, leading to a massive drop in revenue. And the team would have become a glorified minor league team.

Blockchain, as a radical innovation, requires an even higher level of risk tolerance for innovation and adoption — a willingness to risk it all. Companies that tinker around the edges (incremental or architectural innovation) with a project, where if innovation fails, they can just walk away, are much more likely to experience blockchain failures in this early stage of innovation.

Blockchain and other decentralized technologies hold great promise for much-needed change away from the current trend toward more concentrated modes of production and power. The ultimate task is to align our time, efforts and resources with the innovation lessons provided here to give this blockchain technological revolution the best shot to succeed.

Lyall Swim is the chief innovation officer for Atlas Network. He holds a doctorate in education with an emphasis in organizational leadership from Pepperdine University. He has a bachelor’s degree in communications and an MBA from Brigham Young University.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Turkish automaker Togg onboards Metaco for crypto custody and governance

The partnership with Metaco will include using its digital asset custody and orchestration system, Harmonize, to safeguard the custody and governance of Togg’s digital assets.

Turkish automotive company Togg announced a partnership with Metaco — a digital asset custody and orchestration system provider — to secure its open mobility ecosystem built on Avalanche.

Togg’s mobility-as-a-service platform aims to deliver smart contract-powered use cases — including tokenization of mobility services, assessment of CO2 footprint and nonfungible token ownership — for users in Turkey and Europe.

The partnership with Metaco will see the use of its digital asset custody and orchestration platform, Harmonize, to safeguard the custody and governance of Togg’s digital assets. Sharing insights on the initiative, Togg CEO Mehmet Gürcan Karakaş stated:

“Blockchain-enabled digital tokens allow data and other assets to be stored and transferred in a fast, secure, and green way. By leveraging technology from Metaco, we make this possible.”

Hosted over IBM Cloud, Metaco’s platform provides Togg with total control of its encrypted data, workloads and encryption keys. According to the announcement, Harmonize is equipped with compliance standards used by Tier 1 banks dealing with digital assets.

German car manufacturer BMW recently onboarded two blockchain firms to improve its customer loyalty program in Thailand. On Dec. 29, 2022, BMW announced partnerships with blockchain infrastructure firm Coinweb as its decentralized architecture provider and BNB Chain for settling transactions.

The initiative’s first phase focuses on integrating decentralized tech into automating BMW’s daily manual operations. The project’s second phase would see Coinweb develop a customized Web3 application for BMW’s customer loyalty program.

Blockchain’s use in healthcare ‘essential’ to protect sensitive data: Zelis CTO

Zelis CTO Kali Durgampudi has called on healthcare providers to utilize blockchain tech to protect customer data and stave off attacks from cybercriminals.

Kali Durgampudi, the chief technology officer of healthcare payments company Zelis, believes that the implementation of blockchain tech is vital for protecting patients’ sensitive data from cybercriminals.

Speaking with Health IT News on Wednesday, Durgampudi noted that some of the biggest issues in healthcare are privacy and data security as the industry works to digitize its “archaic paper-based processes.”

“Blockchain technology has the potential to alleviate many of these concerns,” he said, as he highlighted the importance of utilizing a digital ledger that is “impenetrable” to protect sensitive patient and financial data amid the growing rate of cyberattacks across the globe:

“Since the information cannot be modified or copied, blockchain technology vastly reduces security risks, giving hospital and healthcare IT organizations a much stronger line of defense against cybercriminals.”

Durgampudi went on to note that blockchain tech can also play a key role in healthcare payments, as it can help provide greater transparency and efficiency over current payment models in healthcare. He said the many payers and providers were hesitant to share information via email as emails could go awry and there was no proof of delivery.

“Blockchain provides both payers and providers with complete visibility into the entire lifecycle of a claim, from the patient registering at the front desk to disputing a cost to sending an explanation of benefits,” he added.

Real world use

One of the major companies that has worked on blockchain-based healthcare solutions is multinational tech giant IBM.

The blockchain arm of the company has rolled out several solutions for healthcare such as health credential verification, the “Trust Your Supplier” service to find verified suppliers and “Blockchain Transparent Supply,” which provides supply chain tracking on temperature-controlled pharmaceuticals.

In March 2021, Cointelegraph reported that IBM was working on a trial of a COVID-19 vaccination passport dubbed the “Excelsior Pass” in partnership with former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. The passport was designed to be able to verify an individual’s vaccination or test results by IBM’s blockchain.

Another key player in the blockchain-based healthcare space is enterprise blockchain VeChain. In June last year, the project teamed up with Shanghai’s Renji Hospital to launch blockchain-based in-vitro fertilization (IVF) service application.

VeChain also partnered with San Marino in July 2021 to launch a nonfungible token- (NFT)-based vaccination passport that was said to be verifiable worldwide by scanning QR codes tied to the certificate.

David Jia, a blockchain investor with a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Oxford University, echoed similar sentiments to Durgampudi this week.

In a Thursday blog post on Medium, Jia emphasized that blockchain tech could significantly improve drug traceability and verification, along with the data management of clinical trials, patient info and claiming/billing.

“Accuracy in medical records over the long term as well as accessibility is essential, as it is necessary for an individual’s record to be able to be transferred between providers, insurance companies, and specialists with relative ease. If medical records are stored on a blockchain, they may be updated safely in almost real-time,” he wrote.