To help advance the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and cognitive solutions in the enterprise, IBM has launched a collaborative development initiative with Lightbend, a provider of a reactive application development platform. The companies say that the resulting joint solutions will provide a complete toolchain to help Java and Scala developers build and deploy AI and cognitive applications in both on-premises and cloud environments.
Lightbend’s Reactive Platform is powered by an open source core and brings developers important capabilities across reactive programming, data and microservices. IBM will integrate these capabilities across its cloud platform and portfolio of cloud services, including data analytics, cognitive and machine learning, and collaborative data science tools, which will be designed to extend new capabilities to Java and Scala communities. Developers across enterprises and startups will be able to take advantage of the latest cognitive and AI technologies and to leverage existing WebSphere investments.
“We believe the use of the Lightbend Reactive Platform is essential to building today’s modern infrastructures,” said Bob Lord, IBM’s chief digital officer. “Java and Scala are the languages of cognitive and AI development, and cognitive development is the future. The collaboration between IBM and Lightbend can help enterprise developers build cognitive applications and accelerate the era of cognitive computing.”
The strategic collaboration between IBM and Lightbend will create new code, tools and documentation that will be designed to help developers build Java- and Scala-based applications on the Lightbend Reactive Platform. It is anticipated to integrate WebSphere and key offerings across IBM Cloud, including app management services, the Watson Data Platform and the more than 150 services across cognitive intelligence, data analytics, Internet of Things, security, DevOps, and blockchain available to developers through the IBM Cloud. IBM and Lightbend have a history of collaboration but this strategic investment and relationship will allow enterprise developers to both reap the benefits of the Lightbend Reactive Platform while integrating IBM’s cognitive development tools, resources and support.
The Lightbend Reactive Platform is projected to be available in the coming weeks through IBM’s Cloud as an integrated bundled solution with WebSphere Application Server.
For more information, visit www.lightbend.com/IBM.