International Business Machines Corporation - IBM STOCK NEWS

IBM reported Q3 2024 revenue of $15.0 billion, up 1% (2% at constant currency), driven by Software revenue growth of 10%. The company's generative AI business reached $3 billion, increasing by $1 billion quarter-over-quarter. Gross profit margin improved to 56.3% GAAP (up 190 basis points) and 57.5% Operating Non-GAAP (up 210 basis points). Software segment now represents nearly 45% of total revenue. The company maintains its full-year free cash flow guidance of over $12 billion, with Q4 revenue growth expected to be consistent with Q3.

IBM has introduced the IBM Guardium Data Security Center, a unified SaaS-first solution designed to enhance data security across hybrid cloud, AI, and quantum environments. This new software offers a comprehensive view of data assets, enabling security teams to integrate workflows and manage data monitoring, governance, detection, response, and cryptography through a single dashboard. Key features include IBM Guardium AI Security to protect AI deployments and IBM Guardium Quantum Safe to safeguard encrypted data from quantum cyberattacks. These tools leverage IBM Research's post-quantum cryptography algorithms, recently standardized by NIST, and are integrated with IBM watsonx and other AI SaaS providers. IBM also announced the addition of decentralized identity features to its Verify portfolio, allowing users to manage digital credentials securely.

IBM has unveiled Granite 3.0, its most advanced family of AI models, at the annual TechXchange event. These models, released under the Apache 2.0 license, demonstrate strong performance across academic and enterprise benchmarks, often outperforming or matching similar-sized models from leading providers. The Granite 3.0 family includes:

1. General Purpose/Language models
2. Guardrails & Safety models
3. Mixture-of-Experts models
4. Time Series models

Key features of Granite 3.0 include improved performance, transparency, safety, and trust in AI products. IBM also introduced Granite Guardian 3.0 models for implementing safety guardrails. The company plans to integrate Granite 3.0 into various applications and platforms, including watsonx Code Assistant and IBM Consulting Advantage, to enhance AI-powered solutions for businesses.

Red Hat has announced a collaboration with Lenovo to deliver Red Hat Enterprise Linux AI (RHEL AI) on Lenovo ThinkSystem SR675 V3 servers. RHEL AI will be the default AI platform for these servers, pre-loaded to facilitate easier development, testing, and running of AI and generative AI models. This collaboration aims to provide optimized performance for AI computing using built-in GPU processing power.

RHEL AI is a foundation model platform that combines IBM Research's Granite family of open source-licensed large language models with InstructLab model alignment tools. It's packaged as an optimized, bootable Red Hat Enterprise Linux image for portability across hybrid cloud environments and is included in Red Hat OpenShift AI for running models at scale.

Lenovo Consulting Service offers comprehensive support for Red Hat solutions, providing expertise in deployment, integration, and management. Customers can test the solution in Lenovo's AI Center of Excellence.

IBM's Institute for Business Value conducted a study on generative AI in the insurance industry, surveying 1,000 insurance c-suite executives and 4,700 insurance customers. Key findings include:

1. Insurance CEOs are split on whether generative AI is more of a risk (49%) or opportunity (51%).
2. 77% of industry leaders believe generative AI is necessary to stay competitive.
3. Investments in generative AI are expected to increase by over 300% from 2023 to 2025.
4. Only 29% of insurance customers are comfortable with gen AI virtual agents providing service.
5. Organizations with less-centralized operating models for gen AI development can improve business outcomes by up to 14%.

The study recommends building tailored products, addressing trust issues, and deploying AI across the enterprise with strong governance.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) has announced that it will hold its quarterly conference call to discuss third-quarter 2024 financial results on Wednesday, October 23, 2024 at 5:00 p.m. ET. Investors and interested parties can access the live webcast of the earnings call at www.ibm.com/investor. The company advises visiting the investor website for the earnings press release prior to the webcast. Following the event, a replay, associated charts, and prepared remarks will be made available for those unable to attend the live call.

IBM has unveiled its first IBM Quantum Data Center outside the United States in Ehningen, Germany. This marks a significant expansion of IBM's fleet of advanced, utility-scale quantum systems available globally via the cloud. The center includes two new IBM Quantum Eagle-based systems and will soon feature an IBM Quantum Heron-based system, offering up to 16 times better performance and a 25-fold increase in speed over 2022 IBM Quantum systems.

The opening was celebrated with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and industry leaders. European-based enterprises and research institutions, including Crédit Mutuel, Bosch, E.ON, Volkswagen Group, and Ikerbasque, are accessing IBM's global quantum fleet to advance quantum algorithm discovery. This expansion demonstrates IBM's commitment to Europe and underscores the importance of collaboration in developing a pan-European quantum ecosystem.

IBM has expanded its Quantum Data Center in Poughkeepsie, New York, now housing the highest number of utility-scale quantum computers at a single location worldwide. The company has installed a second IBM Quantum Heron processor, its most performant to date, offering up to 16 times better performance and a 25-fold increase in speed over 2022 systems. All quantum systems in Poughkeepsie can now operate at utility-scale, surpassing classical computers' simulation capabilities.

The expansion aims to advance algorithm discovery globally, with over 250 organizations using IBM's systems to explore industry-relevant problems. IBM's Qiskit software stack simplifies quantum programming, enabling a growing ecosystem of quantum software and services. The company plans further upgrades to its Poughkeepsie facility as it progresses along its Quantum Development Roadmap.

IBM and NASA have released a new AI foundation model for weather and climate applications, available as open-source on Hugging Face. This model, developed with contributions from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, offers a flexible and scalable approach to address various challenges related to short-term weather and long-term climate projection.

The model was pre-trained on 40 years of Earth observation data from NASA's MERRA-2 and can be fine-tuned for global, regional, and local scales. Two fine-tuned versions are available: one for climate and weather data downscaling, and another for gravity wave parameterization.

This foundation model is part of the Prithvi family of AI models and has already been tested by Environment and Climate Change Canada for additional weather forecasting use cases. It aims to provide actionable science and improve the accuracy of weather and climate simulations.