IBM and Red Hat launch $5B Project Lightwell securing open-source
IBM and Red Hat just kicked off Project Lightwell, a huge $5 billion push to make open-source software safer.
With 20,000 engineers and new AI tools, they're hoping to handle the growing wave of bug reports, a problem that's only gotten bigger with smarter AI uncovering more issues.
This all comes after cURL founder Daniel Steinberg, founder and maintainer of cURL, flagged how fast the bug count was rising.
IBM Red Hat deploy AI scans
Instead of handing out direct funding to independent developers, IBM and Red Hat are using AI to scan for vulnerabilities in key projects, starting with Java/Maven, then expanding to places like PyPI and npm.
Their engineers will review patches before they're rolled out to businesses through commercial subscriptions, treating open-source security like a supply chain priority while still working alongside project maintainers.