Mike Uryniak
Professor Elizabeth Tolman
MIS 315
Module 11 Case: Watson
11–13. How powerful is Watson? Describe its technology. Why does it require so much powerful hardware?
Watson is comprised of 10 racks of IBM POWER 750 servers running Linux, uses 15 terabytes of
RAM, 2,880 processor cores, and operates at 80 teraflops. Watson needs this amount of power to
quickly scan its’ enormous database of information, including information from the Internet.
11–14. How “intelligent” is Watson? What can it do? What can’t it do?
Watson can learn from its successes and miscues. To solve unusual problems, it tries many of the
thousands of algorithms that the team has programmed it to use. The algorithms assess the language
used in each clue, gather data about the important people and places revealed in the clue, and
generate hundreds of solutions. Watson uses natural language processing, data retrieval, knowledge
representation, and machine learning technologies along with IBM’s DeepQA technology for
colossal evidence collection, analysis, and scoring. Watson remembers what type of question and the
algorithm used to get the right answer, allowing it to improve at answering questions over time.
11–15. What kinds of problems is Watson able to solve? How useful a tool is it for knowledge management
methods and algorithms, that don’t provide the correct answer in order to get the correct answer in
the future.