Columbus is winning big on two fronts with the recent opening of IBM’s new
Client Center for Advanced Analytics in the city.
The company is investing $3.2 million in the new center, where it expects to add 500 jobs over the next three years, according to Ron Lovell, vice president of the facility.
In addition, while IBM operates more than 200 other client centers around the globe, the new Columbus facility is the company’s first dedicated advanced analytics center.
Lovell explains that IBM selected Columbus because of the strong and positive public-private partnership within the city, the friendly business climate and the large concentration of college graduates within a 200-mile radius. The endeavor is part of a collaboration with
The Ohio State University,
Jobs Ohio,
Columbus 2020 and locally based businesses, such as the
Information Control Corp.
According to Lovell, "The new anaytics center will tap into local business and academic experts, as well as IBM professionals from across our research, software and services divisions, to create capabilities that will strengthen decision making and help companies react more swiftly to important trends. The principal mission of the new center,” he notes, “is to advance skills through the design, development and support of advanced analytics in new data market areas.”
Data comes from everywhere, Lovell points out, noting that sources include everything from sensors used to gather climate information, posts to social media sites and digital pictures and videos to purchase transaction records and cellphone GPS signals. “This data is ‘big data’,” he explains. “Big data is more than simply a matter of size. It’s an opportunity to find insights into new and emerging types of data and content, to make business more agile and to answer questions previously considered beyond our reach.”
Lovell calls “big data” a “powerful natural resource that, if used wisely, can drive U.S. economic competitiveness and lead toward careers in the future dedicated to improving society.“
He adds that the new Columbus advanced analytics center will have “significant positive implications for both the residents of Columbus and IBM clients.”
Source: Ron Lovell, IBM Client Center for Advanced Analytics
Writer: Lynne Meyer