IBM is transforming into a leading AI technology company. Through its AI venture fund, the company is investing heavily in promising AI companies, while also contributing to the development of the AI ecosystem and technological advancement, demonstrating its leadership position.

IBM announced on the 9th that it is forming a $500 million (approximately 650 billion won) venture fund to accelerate enterprise generative AI technology and research, and will invest in various AI companies, ranging from emerging startups to high-growth startups.

The IBM Enterprise AI Venture Fund has a differentiated model and strategy, comprised of IBM's domain expertise and dedicated portfolio development teams, and will invest in promising AI leaders that can help realize the potential of enterprise AI. The fund will be led by a dedicated team of IBM executives with decades of experience as successful investors and enterprise AI experts, providing startups with operational expertise in product, engineering, and go-to-market strategies, while also providing opportunities to build meaningful partnerships with IBM.

IBM has a long history of providing proven enterprise AI technologies and capabilities to enterprises worldwide, and is delivering cutting-edge generative AI technologies through its AI and data platform, Watsonx. Through the Enterprise AI Venture Fund, IBM will collaborate with companies leveraging and building on Watsonx, grow its AI partnership ecosystem, and contribute to long-term value creation for new and existing clients, as well as AI leaders.

“AI is expected to generate approximately $16 trillion in productivity by 2030,” said Rob Thomas, IBM Software Senior Vice President. “With the launch of the IBM Enterprise AI Venture Fund, we are opening another channel to harness the enormous potential of the AI revolution to create tangible, positive outcomes for IBM and the companies we invest in.”

“This fund will strengthen our commitment to responsible AI innovation through WatsonX and will be another way for companies to leverage this technology in their businesses,” he said.

IBM has recently demonstrated its commitment to promoting enterprise AI through a series of investments in AI technologies and companies. For example, in August, IBM announced its participation in a $235 million Series D funding round for Hugging Face, a leading open-source collaboration platform for the machine learning community shaping the future of AI.

IBM has already provided Hugging Face with hundreds of open AI models and datasets, including the Geospatial Foundation Model, recently developed in collaboration with NASA. This model is Hugging Face's largest Geospatial Foundation AI model and the first open-source AI-based model built in collaboration with NASA.

“We are thrilled to partner with IBM to democratize AI. IBM is making a significant contribution to the open source ecosystem by contributing hundreds of open AI models to the Hugging Face Hub,” said Clem Delangue, co-founder and CEO of Hugging Face. “That’s why we wanted IBM to participate in our Series D funding round. We are confident that IBM will be able to accelerate the impact of AI through its Enterprise AI Venture Fund.”

IBM also recently participated in the Series A funding round of Hidden Layer, a leading security provider for AI models and assets. This funding round expands Hidden Layer's talent base, strengthens its go-to-market efforts, and allows for further investment in its machine learning security (MLSec) platform, marking the largest Series A funding round for an AI-focused cybersecurity company this year.

Today's announcement is seen as a further step forward in IBM Watson x's strategy to accelerate open innovation in AI by leveraging both third-party and proprietary AI models, building on the strong market support it has received.

Meanwhile, in September, IBM unveiled the first model in its Watson x Granite model series, a collection of generative AI models designed to bring generative AI to business applications and workflows. Earlier this year, IBM also announced plans to host Meta's Llama 2 chat 70 billion-parameter model on Watson x, further strengthening its strategy of open innovation by leveraging both third-party and proprietary AI models.