Machine learning: The big draw at a big Beijing, China event

When you throw an event hoping to draw 400 people but an audience of 29,000 shows up, do you think it's a good sign indicating you're onto something? That incredible interest is what happened in Beijing the week of 28 November 2016 at the International Summit on Machine Learning and Industry Application. The event's 20 speakers gathered from across industries and academia to offer their insights about machine learning trends and new directions. For the keynote address, Dinesh Nirmal, vice president, analytics development, at IBM, teamed up with Kent Ting, vice president, IBM Analytics Global Consulting Group, at IBM. Nirmal and Ting talked about the IBM focus on machine learning and the company's efforts to enable developers in China and elsewhere. Of particular interest to the audience was their demo of IBM Watson Machine Learning, a full-service IBM Bluemix platform offering.