MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. — World Wide Technology plans to invest $500 million in the next three years to boost artificial intelligence adoption. The investment will focus on technology, infrastructure, and personnel. The move aligns with the growing demand for generative AI, with more than half of organizations already exploring the technology.
The St. Louis-based technology services provider is the 27th largest private company in the U.S. with an annual revenue of $17.0 billion. David Steward and Jim Kavanaugh founded the business in 1990, and it now has over 9,000 employees.
World Wide Technology sees AI as a transformative technology and aims to help organizations navigate the evolving landscape with innovative solutions. They now plan to create a lab where organizations can test and validate AI applications tailored to their specific needs.
“AI will be the most impactful and transformational technology of all time, but the complexities of today’s rapidly evolving landscape give organizations more options and risk considerations than ever before,” states Jim Kavanaugh, co-founder and chief executive officer of WWT. “For over a decade, the ATC has helped IT leaders cut technology evaluation time from months to weeks by serving as a testbed for innovation in data management, machine learning and deep learning for traditional AI use cases. As the industry moves toward generative AI, WWT’s investments in the ATC (Advanced Technology Center) and data expertise are central to helping our clients achieve better business outcomes.”
The “first-of-its-kind” lab will be built inside the company’s Advanced Technology Center. The center is located in St. Louis and has over 500 racks of equipment. It can be accessed virtually from anywhere on the globe. The company has relationships with chipmakers like Intel, NVIDIA, and AMD to help make the new lab possible.
Note: The video in this story is from a 2015 interview.
