- IBM introduced the Watsonx.ai Lightweight Engine for enterprise use cases.
- It focuses on optimizing CPU and GPU usage for AI deployment.
- This is relevant for both on-premises and cloud-based AI solutions in sensitive industries.
- However, it may reduce the anonymity and privacy of crypto.
IBM has launched its Watsonx.ai Lightweight Engine, specifically designed for enterprises seeking to deploy generative AI without unnecessary resource consumption.
However, this might overcome the cost and complexity barriers in blockchain transaction analysis, which could ultimately threaten crypto’s privacy and confidentiality.
IBM Optimizes AI Deployment in Enterprises
Enterprises have realized AI’s significant potential even at this early stage, where we are now, and are actively seeking to implement it into their processes to optimize each one.
However, they often face two issues. The first is the cost of implementation when running AI locally, and the second is reducing costs by running AI in the cloud but with the accompanying security risks.
IBM’s Watsonx.ai Lightweight Engine aims to solve this problem by significantly optimizing the load on the CPU and GPU. It allows companies to scale their generative AI initiatives without excessive costs, providing a breakthrough for independent software vendors (ISVs) focused on creating scalable, enterprise-level AI solutions.
IBM Lightweight Engine for FinTech and Blockchain
There are particularly sensitive corporate sectors, such as healthcare and finance, where the previously mentioned issues of excessive costs or security risks are especially unacceptable.
This is why many such companies and entire industries have been forced to limit their use of AI until now, particularly in fintech, mining, and blockchain companies.
All this may change thanks to IBM’s Lightweight Engine, providing the flexibility of AI solutions that can be deployed both locally and in the cloud without neglecting industry security standards, while achieving much greater efficiency in financial analytics and crypto mining, as recently also mentioned by Mike Novogratz.
Crypto Community Concerns About AI Implementation
However, there is a downside to this innovation. The high cost and insecurity of AI that previously prevented its implementation in the analytics of all blockchain transactions allowed for the preservation of its privacy.
However, if we develop a truly effective AI solution, this could change, and Edward Snowden’s concerns at the 2024 Bitcoin conference could come true.
Remember that Snowden, a former CIA employee who revealed the mass surveillance of every U.S. citizen and beyond, is highly knowledgeable in security and a rare speaker who does not take bold statements lightly.
But at the Bitcoin conference, we saw a significant speech full of warnings that despite blockchain’s initial security and inherent privacy features, its data is public and could be used to gain complete control over transactions if sufficiently powerful AI solutions are available.
Conclusion
Thus, we are witnessing the rapid development of another key technology of the 21st century, namely AI, and how it is merging with another key technology, perhaps the last one aimed at privacy, independence, and user freedom—blockchain.
It is clear that these technologies will form the new technological framework of our century, but in what form? Will blockchain serve as a reliable data source for AI, and in turn, will AI become an advanced assistant against cyber threats in the crypto industry?
Or will AI allow major players to subjugate blockchain, turning its decentralization and immutability against the very principles for which it was created and against us?
We will be closely watching the development and symbiosis of these key technologies.