IBM Features Table Mountain and Chooses Joburg

Anyone looking at The New York Times online today will see a familiar sight at the top of the front page: a brilliant shot of Table Mountain taken from an angle that includes Lion’s Head, part of the City Bowl and the Atlantic Seaboard.

It’s actually an ad for IBM. If you go to the IBM site (click here), the picture is superimposed with the words “The world is becoming smarter every day.”

Smarter Planet, IBM says, is its six-year-old project where companies, cities and communities around the world “have begun using the vast supply of data to transform their enterprises and institutions through big data and analytics, mobile technology, social business and the cloud.”

The use of the ad comes only two months after IBM announced the opening of its second Africa research facility – in Johannesburg.

It said the Johannesburg lab will be dedicated to bringing to bear advanced technologies, including big data, cloud, analytics and mobile technologies, to support South Africa’s national priorities and to address continental grand challenges.

IBM will be partnering with Wits University to build in Braamfontein, which has seen a rebirth over the past few years, and is hoping to boost the idea of transforming the Tshimologong Precinct into the future technological hub of South Africa.