IBM today announced it will provide an IBM Watson system to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, making it the first university to receive such a system. The arrival of the Watson system will enable new research at Rensselaer, and afford faculty and students an opportunity to find new uses for Watson and deepen the systems’ cognitive capabilities.

Watson has a unique ability to understand the nuances of human language, sift through vast amounts of data, and provide evidence-based answers to its human users' questions. Currently, Watson's fact-finding prowess is being applied to crucial fields, such as healthcare, where IBM is collaborating with medical providers, hospitals and physicians to improve diagnosis accuracy and treatments. IBM is also working with financial institutions to help improve and simplify the banking experience.

Rensselaer's research in web science, big data and artificial intelleligence is expected to help expand Watson’s abilities. Rensselaer faculty and students will seek to further sharpen Watson’s reasoning and cognitive abilities, while broadening the volume, types, and sources of data Watson can draw upon to answer questions. Additionally, Rensselaer researchers will look for ways to apply Watson's capabilities for finance, information technology, business analytics, and other areas.

With 15 terabytes of memory, the Watson system at Rensselaer will store more information than its Jeopardy! predecessor and will allow 20 users to access the system at once – creating an innovation hub on the institutes’ New York campus. Along with faculty researchers and graduate students, undergraduate students at Rensselaer will have opportunities to work directly with the Watson system.

Underscoring the value of the partnership between IBM and Rensselaer, Gartner, Inc. estimates that 1.9 million Big Data jobs will be created in the U.S. by 2015. Pensselaer hopes that by allowing students access to Watson, they will provide the workforce with these professionals.

”The entire Rensselaer community joins me in thanking IBM for enabling us to receive and welcome Watson technology to Rensselaer. The system will be an unprecedented platform to help students and faculty meet the challenge of our university’s motto, ‘Why Not Change the World?’” said Rensselaer President Shirley Ann Jackson.

As part of a Shared University Research (SUR) Award granted by IBM Research, IBM will provide Rensselaer with Watson hardware, software and support services.

Originally developed at the company's Yorktown Heights, N.Y. research facility, IBM's Watson has deep connections to the Rensselaer community. Several key members of IBM’s Watson project team are graduates of Rensselaer, the oldest technological university in the United States. Leading up to Watson's victory on Jeopardy!, Rensselaer was one of eight universities that worked with IBM in 2011 on the development of open architecture that enabled researchers to collaborate on the underlying QA capabilities that help to power Watson.

"The award signifies our strong partnership with Rensselaer and our commitment to ensure New York State has the skills and capabilities to lead in Big Data applications and the next era of computing," said Dr. John E. Kelly, Senior Vice President and Director of IBM Research.

Watson is the latest collaboration between IBM and Rensselaer, which have worked together for decades to advance the frontiers of high-performance computing, nanoelectronics, advanced materials, artificial intelligence, and other areas. IBM is a key partner of the Rensselaer supercomputing center, the Computational Center for Nanotechnology Innovations, where the Watson hardware will be located.