Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute becomes first university to receive IBM Watson system

IBM’s Watson super computer has had quite the journey so far, shaming the competition on Jeopardy and even being recruited to help Citibank with financial advice. It seems a visit to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is next on Watson’s list, with IBM today revealing it plans to deliver a modified version of the artificial intelligence computer to the university. RPI is the first educational facility to receive a Watson system all its own, and has pledged to help IBM expand its cognitive abilities. The two share a long history of collaboration; many “core members” of IBM’s Watson team graduated from RPI according to a video clip detailing the announcement.

We’ve seen firsthand what IBM’s ambitious project is capable of, but RPI staff aim to take things even further. According to the university, faculty and students will work to “sharpen Watson’s reasoning and cognitive abilities, while broadening the volume, types, and sources of data Watson can draw upon to answer questions.” RPI’s Watson system will contain 15 terabytes of hard disk storage, allowing it to store nearly the same amount of data as the machine that brought down Ken Jennings. 20 users will be able to access Watson simultaneously when it arrives on campus. Just don’t expect to see profanity return to Watson’s vocabulary.