<p>IBM and Cisco became the latest multinationals to announce major investments in Israel's new cyber-security technology park in Beersheba. IBM said it would work with Ben Gurion University to establish what it called a Center of Excellence for Security and Protection of Infrastructure and Assets, where students and workers will learn cyber-security skills to ensure the safety of the digital future, the company said.</p><p>The new project "reinforces IBM's commitment to accelerate innovation that meets the industry's most pressing long term business requirements," said Steve Mills, senior vice present and group executive, IBM Software &amp; Systems. Speaking at the recent CyberTech 2014 event in Tel Aviv, Mills said that "our ongoing investments and rich history of patent leadership is helping our clients secure and protect their infrastructure and data in today's new era of Big Data and Cloud Computing. Our partnership with Ben-Gurion University will help extend innovation not only in Israel but around the world."</p><p>In recent years, IBM has put a lot of effort into Big Data and analytics; for example, its Haifa R&amp;D center has a group dedicated to developing methods to mine large caches of unstructured data, using techniques like disambiguation technologies to find information and make sense of it. Some of that technology, said IBM Europe executive Gabi Tal, was used by IBM to program Watson, the intelligent robot that several years ago beat all human comers on the US quiz show Jeopardy. "Watson was built to show the capabilities for artificial intelligence and using and understanding natural language, and the Watson Lab, where much of the technology for the supercomputer was developed, is located in Haifa," said Tal.</p><p>But where there's Big Data, there are big risks, with big-time hackers seeking to steal information or wreck systems. So it's natural that IBM would embrace cyber-security, and with Israel especially Beersheba becoming the world's cyber-security locus, it's natural that the company would join other multinationals, like EMC, Ness Technologies, Lockheed-Martin, and Deutsche Telekom, that have already announced they will set up cyber R&amp;D facilities in cooperation with Ben Gurion.</p><p><a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/ibm-cisco-next-big-players-in-israeli-cyber-security/">Keep reading...</a></p><p>Read also:</p><p><a href="http://www.zdnet.com/ibm-opens-doors-to-israel-centre-for-security-tech-push-7000025810/">IBM opens doors to Israel centre for security tech push</a> (ZDNet)</p><p>Explore: <a href="http://news.google.com/news/more?ncl=dEgFzZwqdqezClM5qrYKrjrOoC8aM&authuser=0&ned=us">8 additional articles.</a></p>