At the moment, it seems like it would be really nifty to use in hobbyist or small data-crunching projects to get C-like performance [1] with a saner syntax, less memory management issues, etc.

I wouldn't want to use it for anything substantial, but if IBM's already hopping on the bandwagon it seems like a good language to learn for heavier use later on.

[1]: http://www.primatelabs.com/blog/2014/12/swift-performance/