The Power of IBM Watson

In 1997 my company, SetFocus, began operations and prior to our first class, we had to outfit a classroom with about 20 PCs. Back then, the latest and greatest was a 166mhz machine for about $1,000.

In an effort to shed further light on the notion of exponential thinking, it occurred to me, 'how does that compare to the IBM Watson computer'?

I also have this theory that all technology ends up at the checkout counter at the supper market ... when might that occur?



Well, let's take a look:

IBM Watson Stats:

• Price: Approx. $3,000,000
• Blades: 90
• Processors/Blade: 4
• Cores/Process : 8
• Clock Speed/Core' 3.55ghz
• each of those 32 servers is equipped with 256 GB of RAM so that it can retain about 200 million pages worth of data about the world.
• Watson can process 500 gigabytes per second, the equivalent of the content in about a million books
• Total Cores: 2,880 (i.e. 90x4x8)
• Avg Cost/Core: $1,042

So, here are a few observations:

The computing power of 1 core in IBM Watson = 20 PCs purchased in 1997
1997 Cost of 20 PCs which equate to a single core = $20,000

Now keep in mind, while that represents a 20:1 ratio ... we are not really comparing apples to apples. My PCs where desktop systems while the IBM Watson platform is clearly server level quality. Even today, there is at least a 2:1 relationship between these types of platforms. So, on a apples to apples comparison, the ration is more likely 40:1 ... quite a change in price performance over the last 15 years.

But, what about 15 years from now ... 2027? What might IBM Watson look like. There are two ways to express this. First, how much computing power could you buy for $3,000,000 and second, what would the current capability cost.

From my earlier blog, we know that it is likely that computing power will increase by a factor of 8 each 5 year period. So, over 15 years we should see 8x8x8 or 512 times more power for the same price.

That would suggest the equivalent of 1.5 million cores at 3.35ghz vs. the current 2,880. In addition, each core could manage 100 billion documents. By way of comparison there are currently between 7 and 8 billion documents on the internet today. Even assuming a decent growth rate of documents, it appears that IBM Watson 2027 could access all of the documents stored on the web.

Conversely, what would todays IBM Watson cost. Well, using the same Moore's Law assumptions, the price should be 1/512th ... or $5,859. At that price, IBM Watson 2012 could be affordable to nearly any small business. Especially if it were paid off over 3 years ... about $180/mo!

Clearly, my predictions may be off a bit ... but probably not that much. Oh, by the way, in 2042 you will be able to say,'let's throw one of those IBM Watson 2012 units in the shopping cart'.