IBM takes aim at a world's worth of data

It’s not enough that IBM has a computer system so smart it can beat human champions on the Jeopardy! game show … Big Blue looks like it wants to rule the internet of things, from electronic health records and smart meters all the way to escalators and ATMs.

And it just might be able to do so, having just released a host of software applications that it says goes beyond the smart grid to “bring a new level of intelligence to the world’s physical infrastructure.”

If you’re thinking delusions of grandeur, think again. As everything around us becomes more data-driven and networked — smart phones, radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, smart meters, building sensors, hospital records, etc. — an enormous and rapidly expanding amount of information is being generated. Find a way to manage and mine that information for better efficiency and other insights, and the “world’s physical infrastructure” could be your oyster.

Looked at that way, the type of infrastructure — electricity transmission and distribution lines, highways, healthcare computers, banking networks and so on — doesn’t matter so much as the data it generates.

IBM’s new software targets customers across the business spectrum: cities, utility providers, railway operators and universities among them. The new applications include analytics for monitoring networks, smart meter network management, real-time asset locating for the healthcare industry and building systems monitoring and analysis. All together, those offerings are likely to put the company in an enviable position in the smart-cities market.

Its latest list of client wins seems to provide early confirmation of that. New customers include the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, the city of Waterloo, the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority, McMaster University and Swiss Federal Railways.

The phrase “game-changer” is admittedly used too much these days, but it’s fair to say this week’s news from IBM qualifies.