IBM Invests Big In Big Data Software Apache Spark

IBM is committing more than 3,500 researchers and developers to an open-source big data project called Spark.

IBM is making one of the biggest investments in history in big data software. As of this week, the tech giant has committed more than 3,500 researchers and developers to the Apache Spark project, along with hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and resources. The open-source Apache Spark initiative makes it possible to analyze massive amounts of data in near-real time, and is used in everything from health care to retail to energy utilities. It is a transformative move for a host of industries—and one that also positions IBM as the vendor of choice for those companies using Spark.