IBM is mulling over a potential sale of its Watson Health artificial intelligence (AI) business as it considers moves to streamline its operations and focus on cloud computing, according to reports in the Wall Street Journal and Yahoo Finance.
Options for the business, which has over $1 billion in revenue but isn't profitable, include a sale to a private-equity firm or industry player, or a merger with a blank-check company, the Wall Street Journal reported. However, deliberations are still in the early stage and IBM may ultimately elect not to move forward with a deal, according to Yahoo Finance.
IBM formed Watson Health -- its first dedicated industry-specific business unit -- in 2015 with the goal of applying its Watson cognitive computing technology to enable personalized healthcare. Watson Health also housed several big IBM healthcare acquisitions, including PACS and imaging software developer Merge Healthcare, population health company Phytel, and cloud-based healthcare intelligence vendor Explorys.
