System S, new software from IBM, can acquire huge volumes of data from many sources and quickly identify correlations within it, harnessing advances in computing and networking horsepower in a fashion that analysts and customers describe as unprecedented.

Instead of creating separate large databases to track things like currency movements, stock trading patterns and housing data, the System S software can meld all of that information together. In addition, it could theoretically then layer on databases that tracked current events, like news headlines on the Internet or weather fluctuations, to try to gauge how such factors interplay with the financial data.

IBM says it expects the software to be useful in analyzing finance, health care and even space weather.