Globant Launches Cognitive Computing Studio

The new Globant Cognitive Computing Studio will deliver cognitive applications and put the company in a space dominated by IBM's Watson.

Globant, a leading Latin American-based solution provider, announced Cognitive Computing Studio in an effort to take advantage of the rise in the use of cognitive computingsystems as the ultimate solution to improve companies' capacities.

The Cognitive Computing Studio will develop products and services using both big data and Globant's expertise in fields such as artificial intelligence, natural language processing and machine learning. These solutions will enable companies to extend their expertise and improve how they relate to their audiences with customer- and context-aware smart applications.

"Our eagerness to address current technology trends is reflected in our Studios where our teams are responsible for providing groundbreaking solutions for our customers," said Martin Migoya, co-founder and CEO at Globant, in a statement. "It's critical for Globant to stay ahead of the technology curve, which we achieve by constantly researching fields that have the potential to change markets. The depth of our Studios has made us experts in topics like artificial intelligence, machine learning and big data, so we decided to introduce a new Studio to exclusively focus on this expertise with the goal of providing enhanced innovative solutions. "

The new Cognitive Computing Studio complements the rest of Globant's offerings, which include the following Studios: Big Data, UX Design, Mobile, Wearables & Internet of Things, Consumer Experience, Continuous Evolution, Digital Content, Gaming, Enterprise Consumerization, CloudOps and Quality Engineering.

"Our customers are leaders in their categories and recognize the vast importance of better catering to end users, digitizing business and committing to ongoing innovation. Therefore, we expect they will embrace this new Studio to grow and succeed," said Migoya.

With the new Cognitive Computing Studio, Globant joins the likes of IBM, which continues to advance its Watson cognitive computing system into new geographies, demographics and vertical markets.

For instance, tapping into the excitement over the upcoming NFL football season, IBM announced it is helpingEdge Up Sports, a sports information and analysis site, develop a Watson-powered application for fantasy football.

Edge Up Sports announced it has become a Watson ecosystem partner and is using Watson's cognitive computing technology for an app that will help fantasy football team owners manage their team's performance. Edge Up Sports made the announcement as part of the launch of a Kickstarter campaign to raise $35,000 for continued product development, giving contributors early access to the app and a role in shaping the product.

"The purpose of opening up IBM Watson capabilities to our ecosystem partners via an open developer platform is to accelerate creativity and entrepreneurial spirit, and Edge Up Sports is a perfect example," said Lauri Saft, vice president of IBM Watson, in a statement. "IBM and its partners are driving innovation across industries with Watson and while it has been applied to very serious societal challenges such as cancer care, Watson can also be applied in fun ways to improve fan experience in the sports and entertainment world."

Also earlier this month, IBM announced that Watson would gain the ability to "see" by bringing together Watson's image analytics capabilities with data and images obtained from Merge Healthcare's medical imaging management platform.

In addition, IBM said it will acquire Merge in a deal worth $1 billion. Merge is a provider of medical image handling and processing services and clinical systems. With the acquisition, IBM claims it will advance health care quality and efficiency by unlocking the value of medical images to help physicians make better patient care decisions.

More than 7,500 U.S. health care sites use Merge's technology. IBM's vision is that these organizations could use the Watson Health Cloud to surface new insights from a consolidated, patient-centric view of current and historical images, electronic health records, data from wearable devices and other related medical data.