HCLTech and IBM launch generative AI Centers of Excellence in India, UK, and US

In a strategic move to leverage technology for business efficiency, HCLTech and IBM have announced the establishment of a generative AI Center of Excellence (GenAI CoE). This collaboration aims to help enterprises modernise legacy applications and drive continuous innovation.

The GenAI CoE will be based at sites in the US, UK, and India, including IBM’s WatsonX AI and data platform and HCLTech’s AI and Cloud Native Labs in Noida, London, New Jersey, and Santa Clara. The new partnership will empower enterprises to develop IT service management (ITSM) use cases, reduce coding complexity, improve skill development on the IBM Watson platform, and enable ongoing innovation.

“This expansion of our work with IBM will facilitate rapid exploration of AI’s potential as we create highly differentiated HCLTech offerings using the latest IBM technology. We plan to embed WatsonX in HCLTech AI Force with GenAI-powered solutions to support code modernisation,” Alan Flower, EVP, global head, AI and Cloud Native Labs, HCLTech, said.

“Additionally, we plan to help our clients accelerate GenAI adoption through AI facilitated by WatsonX while enhancing digital skills for enterprise productivity through the implementation of WatsonX Orchestrate,” he added.

IBM and HCLTech aim to train 10,000 of their engineers and architects in IBM's innovative AI technologies, specifically WatsonX. The adaptive portfolio, CloudSMART for IBM, assists businesses in continuous innovation through advanced technologies, utilising the latest business and technology insights.

“Driving the adoption of responsible generative AI solutions is an important component of our collaboration with service partners like HCLTech. Through this Center of Excellence, we plan to empower our joint clients to rapidly explore, experiment, and engineer generative AI solutions with WatsonX that are designed to meet their current business challenges,” Stephen Smith, general manager, Service Partners, IBM Ecosystem, stated.

The CoE will offer clients access to education and training resources covering diverse AI technologies, including Watsonx.ai, WatsonX.data, WatsonX.governance, WatsonX Code Assistants, WatsonX Orchestrate, and WatsonX Assistant, to help skill their resources and provide a platform for building use cases.

Last month, CRM giant Salesforce launched its first AI center in London to encourage customer and partner innovations and upskilling.