, IBM had 19 research facilities spread across twelve laboratories on six continents including in Nairobi, Kenya, and
Johannesburg, South Africa in Africa; in Cambridge, Massachusetts, San Jose, California, and at the
IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, in Yorktown Heights and Albany, New York, US, in North America; in
Haifa, Israel, in the Middle East; in
Dublin, Ireland, Zürich, Switzerland, and Daresbury and Hursley, United Kingdom, in Europe; and in
Delhi and
Bengaluru, India, in Tokyo, Kyoto and
Shin-Kawasaki, Japan, in Asia. Historic research centers for IBM also include
IBM La Gaude (
Nice), the
Cambridge Scientific Center, the
IBM New York Scientific Center,
330 North Wabash (
Chicago), IBM Austin Research Laboratory, and
IBM Laboratory Vienna. In 2017, IBM invested $240 million to create the MIT–IBM Watson AI Lab. Headquartered in Cambridge, MA, the Lab is a unique joint research venture in artificial intelligence established by IBM and
MIT and brings together researchers in academia and industry to advance AI that has a real world impact for business, academic and society. The Lab funds approximately 50 projects per year, which are co-led by principal investigators from MIT and IBM Research, with results published regularly at top peer-reviewed journals and conferences. Projects range from computer vision, natural language processing and reinforcement learning, to devising new ways to ensure that AI systems are fair, reliable and secure.
Almaden in Silicon Valley IBM Research – Almaden is in
Almaden Valley, San Jose,
California. Its scientists perform basic and applied research in
computer science, services, storage systems, physical sciences, and materials science and technology. IBM Research – Almaden occupies part of a site owned by IBM at 650 Harry Road on nearly of land in the
Santa Teresa Hills above
Silicon Valley. The site, built in 1985 for the research center, was chosen because of its close proximity to
Stanford University,
UC Santa Cruz,
UC Berkeley and other collaborative academic institutions. Today, the research division is still the largest tenant of the site, but the majority of occupants work for other divisions of IBM. IBM opened its first West Coast research center, the San Jose Research Laboratory in 1952, managed by
Reynold B. Johnson. Among its first developments was the
IBM 350, the first commercial moving head hard disk drive. Launched in 1956, this saw use in the
IBM 305 RAMAC computer system. Subdivisions included the Advanced Systems Development Division. Directors of the center include hard disc drive developer
Jack Harker. Prompted by a need for additional space, the center moved to its present Almaden location in 1986. Scientists at IBM Almaden have contributed to several scientific discoveries such as the development of
photoresists and the
quantum mirage effect. The following are some of the famous scientists who have worked in the past or are currently working in this laboratory:
Rakesh Agrawal,
Miklos Ajtai,
Rama Akkiraju,
John Backus,
Raymond F. Boyce,
Donald D. Chamberlin,
Ashok K. Chandra,
Edgar F. Codd,
Mark Dean,
Cynthia Dwork,
Don Eigler,
Ronald Fagin,
Jim Gray,
Laura M. Haas,
Jean Paul Jacob,
Joseph Halpern,
Andreas J. Heinrich,
Reynold B. Johnson,
Maria Klawe,
Jaishankar Menon,
Dharmendra Modha,
William E. Moerner,
C. Mohan,
Stuart Parkin,
Nick Pippenger,
Dan Russell,
Patricia Selinger,
Ted Selker,
Barbara Simons,
Malcolm Slaney,
Arnold Spielberg,
Ramakrishnan Srikant,
Larry Stockmeyer,
Moshe Vardi,
Jennifer Widom,
Shumin Zhai.
Australia IBM Research – Australia was a research and development laboratory established by IBM Research in 2009 in
Melbourne. It was involved in
social media, interactive content, healthcare analytics and services research, multimedia analytics, and genomics. The inaugural lab director was IBM Distinguished Engineer Glenn Wightwick and the lab was subsequently headed by several directors over its 10 years lifespan, including Vice President, Joanna Batstone and Professor Iven Mareels. It was to be the company’s first laboratory combining research and development in a single organisation. The opening of the Melbourne lab in 2011 received an injection of $22 million in
Australian Federal Government funding and an undisclosed amount provided by the
state government. The Melbourne Research lab was closed in 2021, approximately at the same time as the deal for tax breaks from the state government ended. Approximately 80 full-time researchers were made redundant.
Brazil IBM Research – Brazil, established in 2011, was the first IBM Research laboratory in
South America, with locations in
São Paulo and
Rio de Janeiro. Research focuses include industrial technology and science, systems of engagement and insight, social data analytics and natural resources solutions. The new lab was IBM's ninth at the time of opening and the first in twelve years. According to
The Wall Street Journal, its establishment underscored the growing importance of emerging markets and the globalization of innovation. In collaboration with Brazil's government, it was reported at the time to help IBM to develop technology systems around natural resource development and large-scale events such as the
2016 Summer Olympics., with IBM mentioning the work done by the lab would be consolidated with the work performed by other labs in different regions.
Japan The IBM Research – Tokyo, which was called IBM Tokyo Research Laboratory (TRL) before January 2009, is one of IBM's twelve major worldwide research laboratories. It is a branch of IBM Research, and about 200 researchers work for TRL. Established in 1982 as the Japan Science Institute (JSI) in
Tokyo, it was renamed to IBM Tokyo Research Laboratory in 1986, and moved to
Yamato in 1992 and back to
Tokyo in 2012. IBM Tokyo Research Laboratory was established in 1982 as the Japan Science Institute (JSI) in Sanbanchō,
Tokyo. It was IBM's first research laboratory in Asia. JSI was renamed to the IBM Tokyo Research Laboratory in 1986. In 1988, English-to-Japanese machine translation system called "System for Human-Assisted Language Translation" (SHALT) was developed at TRL. It was used to translate IBM manuals.
History TRL was shifted from downtown Tokyo to the suburbs to share a building with
IBM Yamato Facility in
Yamato,
Kanagawa Prefecture in 1993. In 1993, world record was accomplished for generation of continuous coherent
Ultraviolet rays. In 1996, Java JIT compiler was developed at TRL, and it was released for major IBM platforms. Numerous other technological breakthroughs were made at TRL. They have also contributed to the products and services of IBM, and patent filings. TRL conducts research in microdevices,
system software, security and privacy, analytics and
optimization,
human computer interaction,
embedded systems, and services sciences. In 1987, IBM Japan Science Prize was created to recognize researchers, who are not over 45 years old, working at Japanese universities or public research institutes. It is awarded in physics, chemistry, computer science, and electronics. Since then, it has grown into a major lab that leads the development of innovative technologies and solutions for the IBM corporation. The lab’s offices are situated in three locations across Israel:
Haifa,
Tel Aviv, and
Beer Sheva. IBM Research – Haifa employs researchers in a range of areas. Research projects are being executed today in areas such as artificial intelligence, hybrid cloud, quantum computing, blockchain, IoT, quality, cybersecurity, and industry domains such as healthcare.
Aya Soffer is IBM vice president of AI technology and serves as the director of the IBM Research Lab in Haifa, Israel.
History In its 30th year, the IBM Haifa Research Lab in Israel moved to a new home on the University of Haifa campus. The researchers at the Lab are involved in special projects with academic institutions across Israel, the United States, and Europe, and actively participate in numerous consortiums as part of the EU Horizon 2020 programme. Today in 2020, the Lab describes itself as having the highest number of employees in Israel's hi-tech industry who hold advanced degrees in science, electrical engineering, mathematics, or related fields. Researchers participate in international conferences and are published in professional publications. In 2014, IBM Research announced the Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (CCoE) in Beer Sheva in collaboration with
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
Switzerland IBM Research – Zurich (previously called IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, ZRL) is the European branch of IBM Research. It was opened in 1956 and is located in
Rüschlikon near
Zürich, Switzerland. In 1956, IBM opened their first European research laboratory in
Adliswil, Switzerland. The lab moved to its own campus in neighboring Rüschlikon in 1962. The Zürich lab is staffed by a multicultural and interdisciplinary team of a few hundred permanent research staff members, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, representing about 45 nationalities. Collocated with the lab is a
Client Center (formerly the
Industry Solutions Lab), an executive briefing facility demonstrating technology prototypes and solutions. The Zürich lab is world-renowned for its scientific achievements—most notably Nobel Prizes in physics in 1986 and 1987 for the invention of the
scanning tunneling microscope and the discovery of
high-temperature superconductivity, respectively. Other key inventions include
trellis modulation, which revolutionized data transmission over telephone lines;
Token Ring, which became a standard for
local area networks and a highly successful IBM product; the
Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) standard used for highly secure payments; and the
Java Card OpenPlatform (JCOP), a
smart card operating system. The lab contributed significantly to the development and standartization of ML-KEM, and ML-DSA, two important standards in
post-quantum cryptography. Most recently the lab was involved in the development of
SuperMUC, a supercomputer that is cooled using hot water. The Zürich lab focus areas are future chip technologies; nanotechnology; data storage; quantum computing, brain-inspired computing; security and privacy; risk and compliance; business optimization and transformation; server systems. The Zürich laboratory is involved in many joint projects with universities throughout Europe, in research programs established by the European Union and the Swiss government, and in cooperation agreements with research institutes of industrial partners. One of the lab's most high-profile projects is called
DOME, which is based on developing an IT roadmap for the
Square Kilometer Array. The research projects pursued at the IBM Zürich lab are organized into four scientific and technical departments: Science & Technology, Cloud and AI Systems Research, Cognitive Computing & Industry Solutions and Security Research. The lab is currently managed by Alessandro Curioni. On 17 May 2011, IBM and the
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich opened the
Binnig and Rohrer Nanotechnology Center, which is located on the same campus in Rüschlikon. == IBM Scientific Centers ==