IBM is expanding its presence in the enterprise deep learning sector by offering Continuum Analytics’ Anaconda data science platform on its cognitive systems.

Big Blue recently extended support for the Anaconda platform to its open source mainframe.

Anaconda, which is powered by Python, will also integrate with IBM’s PowerAI software for machine learning and deep learning.

The move makes it easier and faster for businesses to analyse and gain insights from data-intensive cognitive workloads.

The Anaconda platform, which already has over 16 million downloads, will also take advantage of the latest POWER8 processors and Nvidia GPUs.

Anaconda on IBM’s deep learning platform will bring powerful capabilities for large-scale data processing, predictive analytics, and scientific computing to simplify package management and deployment.

PowerAI has been developed by IBM to speed enterprise adoption of open-source machine and deep learning frameworks used to build cognitive applications.

Anaconda brings several open data science technologies – from Hadoop and machine learning to distributed processing – together to empower everyone on the data science team.

It enables everyone to exploit their data, analytics and computation for accelerated time-to-value. By linking data scientists to the vast open source ecosystem, the platfrom brings all data science roles together to easily create, collaborate and implement data science solutions.

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Developers using open source ML/DL components will now have the ability to use Power as the deployment platform.

IBM senior vice president Bob Picciano said: “Anaconda on IBM Cognitive Systems empowers developers and data scientists to build and deploy deep learning applications that are ready to scale.”

Continuum Analytics co-founder & chief data scientist Travis Oliphant said: “By optimising Anaconda on Power, developers will also gain access to the libraries in the PowerAI Platform for exploration and deployment in Anaconda Enterprise.”

Intel and Microsoft have also incorporated the Python-powered platform into their machine learning and deep learning tools.