When most people think about artificial intelligence and cognitive computing, they think of futuristic technological landscapes overrun with evil robots. But a growing number of business and IT leaders are beginning to grasp how cognitive computing is radically reshaping the present IT landscape. This next wave of information technology is giving businesses the ability to outthink their competition and giving society the ability to solve some of our most pressing problems. In 2011, when a first-generation cognitive system outplayed two human Jeopardy champions, it did only one thing: answer natural-language questions. Today, that family of cognitive solutions has more than 30 capabilities, accessed via application programming interfaces (APIs) and delivered from the cloud.

IBM's California research lab sits atop a green hill in Almaden, 15 miles south of downtown San Jose. There aren't any signs that suggest if you drive up the narrow road that wraps around the hill you'll find a research facility at the top. No signs that the research center is home to a Fortune 500 company. No signs -- even inside -- that the company once dominated the personal computer industry. After decades in the spotlight as a hardware-centric firm selling PCs, servers and mainframes, the 105-year-old tech giant has made a dramatic shift into a realm that few understand: cognitive computing.

The arrival of artificial intelligence and its ilk -- cognitive computing, deep machine learning -- has felt like a vague distant future state for so long that it's tempting to think it's still decades away from practicable implementation at the point of care. And while many use cases today are admittedly still the exception rather than the norm, some examples are emerging to make major healthcare providers take note. Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing, for instance, recently examined open source algorithms and machine learning tools in public health reporting: The tools bested human reviewers in detecting cancer using pathology reports and did so faster than people. Indeed, more and more leading health systems are looking at ways to harness the power of AI, cognitive computing and machine learning. "Our initial application of deep learning convinced me that these methods have great value to healthcare," said Andy Schuetz, a senior data scientist at Sutter Health's Research Development and Dissemination Group.

Rob has worked for IBM for almost two decades, first as Fellow and Chief Architect for the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) foundation. His current project is Watson, the company's cognitive computing technology that aims to change the way machines interact with humans at the linguistic, emotional and semantic levels. "Cognitive Computing" is like intelligence amplification for humans If we were to put "cognitive computing" into a category, it would probably look more like "intelligence amplification" (IA) rather than Artificial Intelligence (AI). This is the idea that machine learning can amplify human knowledge, capabilities, and aid day-to-day procedural decisions. IBM Watson, located at the company's research center in Yorktown Heights, New York (via Wikipedia) "Watson processes information by understanding natural language, generates hypotheses based on evidence, and, because it becomes more capable and precise, Watson will help leaders and organizations make better, more confident decisions."

I was a slow runner as a boy (jokes to a minimum please). I hated playing those backyard games where I had to chase people around. I found myself looking for ways to outthink the other kids I was chasing. Eventually, I became proficient at cutting around bushes, hopping fences and avoiding backyard obstacles (like garden hoses and trash cans) so that I could easily catch other kids. That's where we are with cognitive computing.

In keeping with its vision of an era of cognitive computing enabled by acceleration technology, IBM Research (NYSE: IBM) today announced plans for a multi-year collaboration with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to create the Center for Cognitive Computing Systems Research (C3SR) which will be housed within the College of Engineering on the Urbana campus. IBM has big ambitions for the center: "C3SR will build and optimize integrated systems such as state-of-the-art cognitive computing systems modeled on IBM's Watson technology that can master a subject area by learning from multimedia and multi-modal educational content. Such systems will efficiently ingest vast amounts of data including videos, lecture notes, homework, and textbooks, and reason through this knowledge effectively enough to be able to eventually pass a college level exam." Many details are yet to be worked out. The level of funding and size of installation will be announced this summer when the new center formally opens, said Hillery Hunter, a project driver and the director for systems acceleration and memory at IBM Research.

Since the discovery and emergence of computers, we know that they lack thought capacities. That is something where human mind surpasses computing technologies. Computers might not possess cognitive abilities, but they are capable of executing operations which completely rely on human perceptions. Whether it is business security, critical processes or customer experiences, it is possible to utilize the power of automation. From handwriting recognition, face identification and behavioral pattern determination to any task requiring cognitive skills, computers are capable of delivering the right solutions.

In a wide-ranging keynote address that included aspirational statements, updates, and announcements, Ginni Rometty, the chairwoman, president, and CEO of the Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM, on Tuesday morning shared her vision of cognitive computing with attendees at the World Health Care Congress, being held this week at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C. Telling her audience that "Healthcare has been central to us for a long time," Rometty framed the broad work that IBM is doing in cognitive computing in terms of what she sees as its potential to change the healthcare industry in three fundamental ways: with regard to "how to reinvent discovery," how to "help change how delivery happens," and how to "transform wellness." Indeed, she said, "Cognitive computing is the future of healthcare," and said that IBM's work in that area, embodied in its development of IBM Watson, its cognitive computing entity, which IBM data scientists and technologists are using to transform knowledge in a broad range of areas. Framing IBM's broad strategic thrust around cognitive computing, Rometty told her audience, "Analytics, cloud, mobile--those are all very important to be a part of the digital society and economy. I always think of digital as foundational; I believe it is disruptive… It is the dawn of a new era. Think of digital business and business intelligence put together, and that will give you cognitive," she said.

Sensors, cognitive computing and robots -- how will the technological innovations taking place rapidly all around us also change one of the most intimate human behaviors?