IBM, SoftBank to bring supercomputer to Japan

New York

IBM announced plans on Tuesday to bring its Watson supercomputer to Japan with mobile telecom group SoftBank, in a deal aimed at developing new applications for robotics and other services.

"IBM is teaching Watson to speak, and think, in Japanese, one of the most difficult languages for a computer to navigate because of its reliance on the complex diagrammatical alphabet known as kanji," a statement from the two companies said.