San Diego – Open Source Summit North America – Aug 21, 2019 – The LF AI Foundation, the organization building an open AI community to drive open source innovation in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL), today announced IBM is joining LF AI as a General Member. IBM, a global leader in delivering AI solutions and an acknowledged leader in bringing AI into widespread use with commercial solutions like Watson, has been working closely on an informal basis with the LF AI Foundation participating in events worldwide and contributing to open source trusted AI workflows with projects like the LF AI Foundation Technical Advisory Committee’s ML Workflow project.
“IBM is a world leader in AI. They provide leadership not only technically, but also from an ethical and trusted AI standpoint. IBM will help spread AI with clear guidelines on ethics, fairness, robustness, and explainability that benefit all participants of the open source AI ecosystem. This is a big step forward in strengthening the reach of AI and helping data scientists and developers worldwide,” said Dr. Ibrahim Haddad, Executive Director of the LF AI Foundation. “We’re excited to have IBM join the LF AI Foundation to promote and shape the future of trusted AI workflows, and foster synergy and collaboration across multiple Linux Foundation umbrella foundations.”
IBM is a Platinum Member of the Linux Foundation, and, in addition to joining in the LF AI Foundation, is also a member of the Open Mainframe Project, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, the OpenJS Foundation, the Hyperledger Foundation, the R Consortium, LF Edge LF Energy, LF ONAP, ODPi, and many others. IBM is strongly committed to the development and advancement of the open source ecosystem. IBM’s data and AI product offerings are built on open source and are strengthened by the accelerated pace and energy of community development. With their membership in LF AI, they are committing to support open source AI technologies and to collaborate with the global community in a vendor-neutral environment for advancing the open source AI platform.
“IBM has a long history of contributions to open source foundations and community projects,” said IBM VP Todd Moore, Open Technologies and Developer Ecosystem.“ The time is right for IBM to join LF AI as a General Member to work closely with existing members and the broader community to lay the foundations for trusted AI workflows together. IBM Research is a leader in trusted AI and ethical AI guidelines, and IBM’s Data and AI offerings are built on open source components.”
“We are very excited to have IBM join the LF AI Foundation. They are a key piece in the continued growth of the LF AI Foundation. We have been working closely together on areas like our ML Workflow effort and exploring possible collaboration with other industry initiatives and other Linux Foundation hosted projects. IBM has already been active suggesting additions to the LF AI landscape, including projects in the area of trusted AI. This announcement expends an already strong relationship,” said Dr. Ofer Hermoni, Director of Product Strategy at Amdocs and Chair of the LF AI Technical Advisory Counsel. “IBM is well-known for their leadership in open source AI ethics, and we welcome their strong contributions in these areas as part of the LF AI Foundation.”
“AT&T is excited to welcome IBM and its AI expertise to the LF AI community. It is encouraging to see industry leaders commit to open innovation with ethics as a strong foundation,” said Mazin Gilbert, Vice President at AT&T Labs.
“IBM is a welcome addition to the LF AI Foundation membership as a leader in the development of open source AI through their Center for Open Source Data and AI Technology” said Dr. Jamil Chawki, Chairman of the LF AI Foundation Outreach Committee. “We look forward to working closely with IBM and helping chart the future of AI together, including the area of trusted AI workflows.”
“As one of the founding members of LF AI, Tech Mahindra is excited to see the AI ecosystem growing. We extend our warm welcome to IBM for joining LF AI and bringing in the expertise in Ethical AI which will play a crucial role in ensuring that we build AI right,” said Dr. Satish Pai, Sr. Vice President, Americas Communications, Media and Entertainment, Tech Mahindra. “Tech Mahindra looks forward to collaborate and create synergies with IBM across LF AI hosted projects including Acumos.”
“IBM is a pioneer in the field of AI. Tencent sends its warmest congratulations on joining the LF AI Foundation,” said Dr. Han Xiao, Engineering Lead, Tencent AI Lab. “IBM’s continued success using and developing AI applications will help strengthen the message of the LF AI Foundation, and together with all the members we can build an open and collaborative AI ecosystem.”
About IBM Data and AI
For more information go to https://www.ibm.com/analytics/ and https://developer.ibm.com/code/open/centers/codait/.
About LF AI Foundation
The LF AI Foundation, a Linux Foundation project, accelerates and sustains the growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) open source projects. Backed by many of the world’s largest technology leaders, LF AI is a neutral space for harmonization and ecosystem engagement to advance AI, ML and DL innovation. To get involved with the LF AI Foundation, please visit https://lfai.foundation.
