IBM Research is the

research and development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in Europe as research and technological development (RTD), is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products, and improving existi ...

division for IBM, an American multinational

information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system (I ...

company headquartered in

Armonk, New York Armonk is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the town of North Castle, located in Westchester County, New York, United States. The corporate headquarters of IBM are located in Armonk. Geography and climate As of the 2010 census, Ar ...

, with operations in over 170 countries. IBM Research is the largest industrial research organization in the world and has twelve labs on six continents. IBM employees have garnered six

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

s, six

Turing Award The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in compu ...

s, 20 inductees into the U.S. National Inventors Hall of Fame, 19 National Medals of Technology, five National Medals of Science and three Kavli Prizes. , the company has generated more

patents A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

than any other business in each of 25 consecutive years, which is a record.

History

The roots of today's IBM Research began with the 1945 opening of the Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. This was the first IBM laboratory devoted to pure science and later expanded into additional IBM Research locations in

Westchester County, New York Westchester County is located in the U.S. state of New York. It is the seventh most populous county in the State of New York and the most populous north of New York City. According to the 2020 United States Census, the county had a population o ...

, starting in the 1950s,Beatty, Jack, (editor
''Colussus: how the corporation changed America''
New York : Random House, 2001. . Cf. chapter "Making the 'R' Yield 'D': The IBM Labs" by Robert Buderi.IBM
"Watson Research Center: Watson Facility History"
/ref> including the

Thomas J. Watson Research Center The Thomas J. Watson Research Center is the headquarters for IBM Research. The center comprises three sites, with its main laboratory in Yorktown Heights, New York, U.S., 38 miles (61 km) north of New York City, Albany, New York and with ...

in 1961. Notable company inventions include the

floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined w ...

, the

hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magnet ...

, the

magnetic stripe card The term digital card can refer to a physical item, such as a memory card on a camera, or, increasingly since 2017, to the digital content hosted as a virtual card or cloud card, as a digital virtual representation of a physical card. They share ...

, the

relational database A relational database is a (most commonly digital) database based on the relational model of data, as proposed by E. F. Codd in 1970. A system used to maintain relational databases is a relational database management system (RDBMS). Many relatio ...

, the Universal Product Code (UPC), the financial swap, the Fortran programming language, SABRE airline reservation system,

DRAM Dynamic random-access memory (dynamic RAM or DRAM) is a type of random-access semiconductor memory that stores each bit of data in a memory cell, usually consisting of a tiny capacitor and a transistor, both typically based on metal-oxid ...

, copper wiring in

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical resistivity and conductivity, electrical conductivity value falling between that of a electrical conductor, conductor, such as copper, and an insulator (electricity), insulator, such as glas ...

s, the

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

, the

portable computer A portable computer is a computer designed to be easily moved from one place to another and included a display and keyboard together, with a single plug, much like later desktop computers called '' all-in-ones'' (AIO), that integrate the sy ...

, the

Automated Teller Machine An automated teller machine (ATM) or cash machine (in British English) is an electronic telecommunications device that enables customers of financial institutions to perform financial transactions, such as cash withdrawals, deposits, fun ...

(ATM), the silicon-on-insulator (SOI) semiconductor manufacturing process, Watson artificial intelligence and the

Quantum Experience The IBM Quantum Composer and the IBM Quantum Lab (previously known collectively as the IBM Quantum Experience) form an online platform allowing public and premium access to cloud-based quantum computing services provided by IBM Quantum. This includ ...

. Advances in

nanotechnology Nanotechnology, also shortened to nanotech, is the use of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale for industrial purposes. The earliest, widespread description of nanotechnology referred to the particular technological goal o ...

include IBM in atoms, where a

scanning tunneling microscope A scanning tunneling microscope (STM) is a type of microscope used for imaging surfaces at the atomic level. Its development in 1981 earned its inventors, Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, then at IBM Zürich, the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986. ...

was used to arrange 35 individual

xenon Xenon is a chemical element with the symbol Xe and atomic number 54. It is a dense, colorless, odorless noble gas found in Earth's atmosphere in trace amounts. Although generally unreactive, it can undergo a few chemical reactions such as the ...

atoms on a substrate of chilled crystal of

nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow to ...

to spell out the three letter company

acronym An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...

. It was the first time atoms had been precisely positioned on a flat surface. Major undertakings at IBM Research have included the invention of innovative materials and structures, high-performance microprocessors and computers, analytical methods and tools,

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specificat ...

software architecture Software architecture is the fundamental structure of a software system and the discipline of creating such structures and systems. Each structure comprises software elements, relations among them, and properties of both elements and relations. ...

s, methods for managing, searching and deriving meaning from data and in turning IBM's advanced services methodologies into reusable assets. IBM Research's numerous contributions to physical and computer sciences include the

Scanning Tunneling Microscope A scanning tunneling microscope (STM) is a type of microscope used for imaging surfaces at the atomic level. Its development in 1981 earned its inventors, Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, then at IBM Zürich, the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986. ...

and

high-temperature superconductivity High-temperature superconductors (abbreviated high-c or HTS) are defined as materials that behave as superconductors at temperatures above , the boiling point of liquid nitrogen. The adjective "high temperature" is only in respect to previ ...

, both of which were awarded the

. IBM Research was behind the inventions of the

SABRE A sabre ( French: �sabʁ or saber in American English) is a type of backsword with a curved blade associated with the light cavalry of the early modern and Napoleonic periods. Originally associated with Central European cavalry such as th ...

travel reservation system, the technology of

laser eye surgery Eye surgery, also known as ophthalmic or ocular surgery, is surgery performed on the eye or its adnexa, by an ophthalmologist or sometimes, an optometrist. Eye surgery is synonymous with ophthalmology. The eye is a very fragile organ, and requ ...

, magnetic storage, the

, UPC barcodes and Watson, the question-answering computing system that won a match against human champions on the

Jeopardy! ''Jeopardy!'' is an American game show created by Merv Griffin. The show is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Rather than being given questions, contestants are instead given genera ...

television quiz show. The Watson technology is now being commercialized as part of a project with healthcare company

Anthem Inc. Elevance Health, Inc. is an American health insurance provider. The company's services include medical, pharmaceutical, dental, behavioral health, long-term care, and disability plans through affiliated companies such as Anthem Blue Cross and ...

Other notable developments include the

Data Encryption Standard The Data Encryption Standard (DES ) is a symmetric-key algorithm for the encryption of digital data. Although its short key length of 56 bits makes it too insecure for modern applications, it has been highly influential in the advancement of cry ...

(DES),

fast Fourier transform A fast Fourier transform (FFT) is an algorithm that computes the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) of a sequence, or its inverse (IDFT). Fourier analysis converts a signal from its original domain (often time or space) to a representation in th ...

(FFT),

Benoît Mandelbrot Benoit B. Mandelbrot (20 November 1924 – 14 October 2010) was a Polish-born French-American mathematician and polymath with broad interests in the practical sciences, especially regarding what he labeled as "the art of roughness" of phy ...

's introduction of

fractal In mathematics, a fractal is a geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales, usually having a fractal dimension strictly exceeding the topological dimension. Many fractals appear similar at various scales, as illu ...

s, magnetic disk storage (

hard disk A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magnet ...

s, the

MELD-Plus MELD-Plus is a risk score to assess severity of chronic liver disease that was resulted from a collaboration between Massachusetts General Hospital and IBM. The score includes nine variables as effective predictors for 90-day mortality after a dis ...

risk score, the one-transistor

dynamic random-access memory Dynamic random-access memory (dynamic RAM or DRAM) is a type of random-access semiconductor memory that stores each bit of data in a memory cell, usually consisting of a tiny capacitor and a transistor, both typically based on metal-oxide ...

(DRAM), the

reduced instruction set computer In computer engineering, a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) is a computer designed to simplify the individual instructions given to the computer to accomplish tasks. Compared to the instructions given to a complex instruction set comput ...

(RISC) architecture,

s, and

Deep Blue Deep Blue may refer to: Film * ''Deep Blues: A Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads'', a 1992 documentary film about Mississippi Delta blues music * Deep Blue (2001 film), ''Deep Blue'' (2001 film), a film by Dwight H. Little * Deep Blue (2003 ...

( grandmaster-level

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

-playing computer).

Notable IBM researchers

There are a number of computer scientists "who made IBM Research famous." These include

Frances E. Allen Frances Elizabeth Allen (August 4, 1932August 4, 2020) was an American computer scientist and pioneer in the field of optimizing compilers. Allen was the first woman to become an IBM Fellow, and in 2006 became the first woman to win the Turing ...

Marc Auslander Marc Alan Auslander is an American computer scientist known for his contributions to the PL/8 compiler. He spent his entire career at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY. Auslander received a Bachelor of Arts degre ...

John Backus John Warner Backus (December 3, 1924 – March 17, 2007) was an American computer scientist. He directed the team that invented and implemented FORTRAN, the first widely used high-level programming language, and was the inventor of the Back ...

Charles H. Bennett (computer scientist) Charles Henry Bennett (born 1943) is a physicist, information theorist and IBM Fellow at IBM Research. Bennett's recent work at IBM has concentrated on a re-examination of the physical basis of information, applying quantum physics to the problem ...

Erich Bloch Erich Bloch (January 9, 1925 – November 25, 2016) was a German-born American electrical engineer and administrator. He was involved with developing IBM's first transistorized supercomputer, 7030 Stretch, and mainframe computer, System/360 ...

Grady Booch Grady Booch (born February 27, 1955) is an American software engineer, best known for developing the Unified Modeling Language (UML) with Ivar Jacobson and James Rumbaugh. He is recognized internationally for his innovative work in software archit ...

Fred Brooks Frederick Phillips Brooks Jr. (April 19, 1931 – November 17, 2022) was an American computer architect, software engineer, and computer scientist, best known for managing the development of IBM's System/360 family of computers and the O ...

(known for his book

The Mythical Man-Month ''The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering'' is a book on software engineering and project management by Fred Brooks first published in 1975, with subsequent editions in 1982 and 1995. Its central theme is that adding manpower to a ...

), Peter Brown, Larry Carter,

Gregory Chaitin Gregory John Chaitin ( ; born 25 June 1947) is an Argentine-American mathematician and computer scientist. Beginning in the late 1960s, Chaitin made contributions to algorithmic information theory and metamathematics, in particular a computer-t ...

, John Cocke,

Alan Cobham Sir Alan John Cobham, KBE, AFC (6 May 1894 – 21 October 1973) was an English aviation pioneer. Early life and family As a child he attended Wilson's School, then in Camberwell, London. The school relocated to the former site of Croydo ...

Edgar F. Codd Edgar Frank "Ted" Codd (19 August 1923 – 18 April 2003) was an English computer scientist who, while working for IBM, invented the relational model for database management, the theoretical basis for relational databases and relational databa ...

Don Coppersmith Don Coppersmith (born 1950) is a cryptographer and mathematician. He was involved in the design of the Data Encryption Standard block cipher at IBM, particularly the design of the S-boxes, strengthening them against differential cryptanalysis ...

Wallace Eckert Wallace John Eckert (June 19, 1902 – August 24, 1971) was an American astronomer, who directed the Thomas J. Watson Astronomical Computing Bureau at Columbia University which evolved into the research division of IBM. Life Wallace John Eckert ...

Ronald Fagin Ronald Fagin (born 1945) is an American mathematician and computer scientist, and IBM Fellow at the IBM Almaden Research Center. He is known for his work in database theory, finite model theory, and reasoning about knowledge. Biography Ron ...

Horst Feistel Horst Feistel (January 30, 1915 – November 14, 1990) was a German-American cryptographer who worked on the design of ciphers at IBM, initiating research that culminated in the development of the Data Encryption Standard (DES) in the 1970s. The ...

Jeanne Ferrante Jeanne Ferrante is a computer scientist active in the field of compiler technology, where she has made important contributions regarding optimization and parallelization. Jeanne Ferrante is Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Uni ...

Zvi Galil Zvi Galil ( he, צבי גליל; born June 26, 1947) is an Israeli-American computer scientist and mathematician. Galil served as the President of Tel Aviv University from 2007 through 2009. From 2010 to 2019, he was the dean of the Georgia Instit ...

Ralph E. Gomory Ralph Edward Gomory (born May 7, 1929) is an American applied mathematician and executive. Gomory worked at IBM as a researcher and later as an executive. During that time, his research led to the creation of new areas of applied mathematics. ...

, Jim Gray,

Joseph Halpern Joseph Yehuda Halpern (born 1953) is an Israeli-American professor of computer science at Cornell University. Most of his research is on reasoning about knowledge and uncertainty. Biography Halpern graduated in 1975 from University of Toronto wi ...

Kenneth E. Iverson Kenneth Eugene Iverson (17 December 1920 – 19 October 2004) was a Canadian computer scientist noted for the development of the programming language APL. He was honored with the Turing Award in 1979 "for his pioneering effort in programming l ...

Frederick Jelinek Frederick Jelinek (18 November 1932 – 14 September 2010) was a Czech-American researcher in information theory, automatic speech recognition, and natural language processing. He is well known for his oft-quoted statement, "Every time I fire a ...

Reynold B. Johnson Reynold B. Johnson (July 16, 1906September 15, 1998) was an American inventor and computer pioneer. A long-time employee of IBM, Johnson is said to be the "father" of the hard disk drive. Other inventions include automatic test scoring equipment ...

Benoit Mandelbrot Benoit B. Mandelbrot (20 November 1924 – 14 October 2010) was a Polish-born French-American mathematician and polymath with broad interests in the practical sciences, especially regarding what he labeled as "the art of roughness" of phy ...

, Robert Mercer (businessman),

C. Mohan Chandrasekaran Mohan is an Indian-born American computer scientist. He was born on 3 August 1955 in Tamil Nadu, India. After growing up there and finishing his undergraduate studies in Chennai, he moved to the United States in 1977 for gradu ...

Kirsten Moselund Kirsten E. Moselund is a Danish engineer who is a professor of electronics and microtechnology at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. She also leads the Laboratory for Nano and Quantum Technologies at Paul Scherrer Institute. She previ ...

Michael O. Rabin Michael Oser Rabin ( he, מִיכָאֵל עוזר רַבִּין; born September 1, 1931) is an Israeli mathematician and computer scientist and a recipient of the Turing Award. Biography Early life and education Rabin was born in 1931 in ...

Arthur Samuel Arthur Lee Samuel (December 5, 1901 – July 29, 1990) was an American pioneer in the field of computer gaming and artificial intelligence. He popularized the term "machine learning" in 1959. The Samuel Checkers-playing Program was among the wo ...

Barbara Simons Barbara Bluestein Simons (born January 26, 1941) is an American computer scientist and the former president of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). She is a Ph.D. graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and spent her early ca ...

Alfred Spector Alfred Zalmon Spector is an American computer scientist and research manager. He is a visiting scholar in the MIT EECS Department and was previously CTO of Two Sigma Investments. Before that, he was Vice President of Research and Special Initiati ...

, Gardiner Tucker,

Moshe Vardi , honorific_suffix = , image = Moshe Vardi IMG 0010.jpg , birth_date = , birth_place = Israel , workplaces = Rice UniversityIBM ResearchStanford University , alma_mater = , thesis_title = The I ...

John Vlissides John Matthew Vlissides (August 2, 1961 – November 24, 2005) was a software engineer known mainly as one of the four authors (referred to as the Gang of Four) of the book '' Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software''. Vliss ...

Mark N. Wegman Mark N. Wegman is an American computer scientist known for his contributions to algorithms and compiler optimization. Wegman received his B.A. from New York University and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He joined IBM Resea ...

and

Shmuel Winograd __NOTOC__ Shmuel Winograd ( he, שמואל וינוגרד; January 4, 1936 – March 25, 2019) was an Israeli-American computer scientist, noted for his contributions to computational complexity. He has proved several major results regarding the ...

Laboratories

IBM currently has 19 research facilities spread across 12 laboratories on six continents: * Africa (Nairobi, Kenya, and Johannesburg, South Africa) * Almaden (San Jose) * Australia (Melbourne) * Brazil (Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro) * Cambridge - IBM Research and MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab (Cambridge, US) * China (Beijing) * Israel (Haifa) * Ireland (Dublin) * India (Delhi and Bengaluru) * Tokyo (Tokyo and Shin-kawasaki) * Zurich (Zurich) *

IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center The Thomas J. Watson Research Center is the headquarters for IBM Research. The center comprises three sites, with its main laboratory in Yorktown Heights, New York, U.S., 38 miles (61 km) north of New York City, Albany, New York and with ...

(Yorktown Heights and Albany) Historic research centers for IBM also include

IBM La Gaude The IBM La Gaude Study and Research Center (Centre d'études et recherches IBM La Gaude) was a computer research laboratory for IBM, located in La Gaude near Nice on the Côte d'Azur. In the 1990s, it became a presentation center for IBM Business S ...

(

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...

), the

Cambridge Scientific Center The IBM Cambridge Scientific Center was a company research laboratory established in February 1964 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Situated at 545 Technology Square (''Tech Square''), in the same building as MIT's Project MAC, it was later renamed t ...

, the

IBM New York Scientific Center The Thomas J. Watson Research Center is the headquarters for IBM Research. The center comprises three sites, with its main laboratory in Yorktown Heights, New York, Yorktown Heights, New York (state), New York, U.S., 38 miles (61 km) north ...

, 330 North Wabash (

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

), IBM Austin Research Laboratory, and

IBM Laboratory Vienna IBM Laboratory Vienna was an IBM research laboratory based in Vienna, Austria. The laboratory started with a group led by Heinz Zemanek that moved from the Technische Hochschule (now the Technical University of Vienna). Initially, the group worked ...

. 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, which 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 that 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 , other_name= , native_name= es, Almadén , nickname= , settlement_type= Neighborhood of San Jose , total_type= , motto= , image_skyline = , flag_size= , image_sea= , seal_size= , image_shield= , shield_size= , image_blank_emblem= , ...

. Its scientists perform basic and applied research in

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

, services, storage systems, physical sciences, and materials science and technology. Almaden occupies part of a site owned by IBM at 650 Harry Road on nearly of land in the

Santa Teresa Hills The Santa Teresa Hills are a range of mountains in Santa Clara County, California, located primarily in the city of San Jose. They separate the San Jose neighborhoods of Almaden Valley to the west and Santa Teresa to the east. Geography The ra ...

above

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...

. The site, built in 1985 for the research center, was chosen because of its close proximity to

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

UC Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge of ...

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

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

. Among its first developments was the

IBM 350 IBM manufactured magnetic disk storage devices from 1956 to 2003, when it sold its hard disk drive business to Hitachi. Both the hard disk drive (HDD) and floppy disk drive (FDD) were invented by IBM and as such IBM's employees were responsible fo ...

, the first commercial moving head hard disk drive. Launched in 1956, this saw use in the

IBM 305 RAMAC The IBM 305 RAMAC was the first commercial computer that used a moving-head hard disk drive (magnetic disk storage) for secondary storage. The system was publicly announced on September 14, 1956,

computer system. Subdivisions included the Advanced Systems Development Division. Directors of the center include hard disc drive developer

Jack Harker John Mason "Jack" Harker (June 29, 1926 – April 27, 2013) was an inventor, mechanical engineer, and product and program manager who pioneered development of disk storage systems.

. 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

photoresist A photoresist (also known simply as a resist) is a light-sensitive material used in several processes, such as photolithography and photoengraving, to form a patterned coating on a surface. This process is crucial in the electronic industry. T ...

s and the

quantum mirage In physics, a quantum mirage is a peculiar result in quantum chaos. Every system of quantum dynamical billiards will exhibit an effect called ''scarring'', where the quantum probability density shows traces of the paths a classical billiard ball wou ...

effect. The following are some of the famous scientists who have worked in the past or are currently working in this laboratory: Rakesh Agrawal,

Rama Akkiraju Rama Akkiraju is an Indian-born American computer scientist. She is vice president of AI for IT at Nvidia and performs research in the field of artificial intelligence. Akkiraju started her career at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center, T. J. ...

, Raymond F. Boyce,

Donald D. Chamberlin Donald D. Chamberlin is an American computer scientist who is one of the principal designers of the original SQL language specification with Raymond Boyce. He also made significant contributions to the development of XQuery. Chamberlin was e ...

Ashok K. Chandra Ashok K. Chandra (30 July 1948 – 15 November 2014) was a computer scientist at Microsoft Research in Mountain View, California, Mountain View, California, United States, where he was a general manager at the Internet Services Research Center. Cha ...

, Mark Dean,

Cynthia Dwork Cynthia Dwork (born June 27, 1958) is an American computer scientist at Harvard University, where she is Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science, Radcliffe Alumnae Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and Affiliated Professo ...

Don Eigler Donald M. Eigler (March 23, 1953) is an American physicist associated with the IBM Almaden Research Center, who is noted for his achievements in nanotechnology. Work In 1989, Eigler was the first to use a scanning tunneling microscope tip to ar ...

, Jim Gray,

Laura M. Haas Laura M. Haas is an American computer scientist noted for her research in database systems and information integration. She is best known for creating systems and tools for the integration of heterogeneous data from diverse sources, including fe ...

Andreas J. Heinrich Andreas J. Heinrich is a physicist working with scanning tunneling microscopy, quantum technology, nanoscience, spin excitation spectroscopy, and precise atom manipulation. He worked for IBM Research in IBM Research - Almaden, Almaden for 18 yea ...

Maria Klawe Maria Margaret Klawe ( ; born 1951) is a computer scientist and the fifth president of Harvey Mudd College (since July 1, 2006). Born in Toronto in 1951, she became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2009. She was previously Dean of the School of En ...

Jaishankar Menon Jaishankar Menon (born: 09 August 1956) is an Indian-American computer scientist and researcher. Life and career Menon joined IBM's research team in San Jose, California, in 1982, where he developed RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) ...

Dharmendra Modha __NOTOC__ Dharmendra S. Modha is an Indian American manager and lead researcher of the Cognitive Computing group at IBM Almaden Research Center. He is known for his pioneering works in Artificial Intelligence and Mind Simulation. In November 200 ...

, William E. Moerner,

Stuart Parkin Stuart Stephen Papworth Parkin (born 9 December 1955) is an experimental physicist, IBM Fellow and manager of the magnetoelectronics group at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California. He is also a consulting professor in the dep ...

Nick Pippenger Nicholas John Pippenger is a researcher in computer science. He has produced a number of fundamental results many of which are being widely used in the field of theoretical computer science, database processing and compiler optimization. He has ...

, Dan Russell,

Patricia Selinger Patricia G. Selinger is an American computer scientist and IBM Fellow, best known for her work on relational database management systems. Education She received A.B. (1971), S.M. (1972), and Ph.D. (1975) degrees in applied mathematics from Ha ...

Ted Selker Edwin Joseph Selker, better known as Ted Selker, is an American computer scientist known for his user interface inventions. Biography Selker graduated from Brown University in 1979 with a BS in Applied Mathematics, and from the University of Massa ...

Malcolm Slaney Malcolm Slaney is an American electrical engineer, whose research has focused on machine perception and multimedia analysis. He is a Fellow of the IEEE for "contributions to perceptual signal processing and tomographic imaging". He is a consulti ...

Ramakrishnan Srikant Ramakrishnan Srikant is a Google Fellow at Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerc ...

Larry Stockmeyer Larry Joseph Stockmeyer (1948 – 31 July 2004) was an American computer scientist. He was one of the pioneers in the field of computational complexity theory, and he also worked in the field of distributed computing. He died of pancreatic can ...

Jennifer Widom Jennifer Widom is an American computer scientist known for her work in database systems and data management. She is notable for foundational contributions to semi-structured data management and data stream management systems. Since 2017, Widom ...

Shumin Zhai Shumin Zhai (Chinese simplified: 翟树民) (born 1961) is an American-Canadian-Chinese Human–computer interaction (HCI) research scientist and inventor. He is known for his research specifically on input devices and interaction methods, swipe- ...

Australia

IBM Research – Australia is a research and development laboratory established by IBM Research in 2009 in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

. It is involved in

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

, interactive content, healthcare analytics and services research, multimedia analytics, and genomics. The lab is headed by Vice President and Lab Director Joanna Batstone. 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 The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Government i ...

funding and an undisclosed amount provided by the

State Government A state government is the government that controls a subdivision of a country in a federal form of government, which shares political power with the federal or national government. A state government may have some level of political autonomy, or ...

Brazil

IBM Research – Brazil is one of twelve

research laboratories A research institute, research centre, research center or research organization, is an establishment founded for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research. Although the term often im ...

comprising IBM Research, its first in

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

. It was established in 2011, with locations in

São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaWC a ...

and

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

. Research focuses on Industrial Technology and Science, Systems of Engagement and Insight, Social Data

Analytics Analytics is the systematic computational analysis of data or statistics. It is used for the discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data. It also entails applying data patterns toward effective decision-making. It ...

and

Natural Resources Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest and cultural value. O ...

Solutions. The new lab, IBM's ninth at the time of opening and first in 12 years, underscores the growing importance of emerging markets and the globalization of innovation. In collaboration with Brazil's government, it will help IBM to develop technology systems around natural resource development and large-scale events such as the

2016 Summer Olympics The 2016 Summer Olympics ( pt, Jogos Olímpicos de Verão de 2016), officially the Games of the XXXI Olympiad ( pt, Jogos da XXXI Olimpíada) and also known as Rio 2016, was an international multi-sport event held from 5 to 21 August 20 ...

. Engineer and associate lab director Ulisses Mello explains that IBM has four priority areas in Brazil: "The main area is related to

natural resources management Natural resource management (NRM) is the management of natural resources such as Land (economics), land, water, soil, plants and animals, with a particular focus on how management affects the quality of life for both present and future generati ...

, involving oil and gas, mining and agricultural sectors. The second is the social data analytics segment that comprises the analysis of data generated from

social networking A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...

sites

uch as Twitter or Facebook Uch ( pa, ; ur, ), frequently referred to as Uch Sharīf ( pa, ; ur, ; ''"Noble Uch"''), is a historic city in the southern part of Pakistan's Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab province. Uch may have been founded as Alexandria on the Indus, a town ...

which can be applied, for example, to financial analysis. The third strategic area is

applied to the development of the smarter devices for the intermittent production industry. This technology can be applied to, for example, blood testing or recovering oil from existing fields. And the last one is smarter cities."

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 Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

, it was renamed to IBM Tokyo Research Laboratory in 1986, and moved to

Yamato was originally the area around today's Sakurai City in Nara Prefecture of Japan, which became Yamato Province and by extension a name for the whole of Japan. Yamato is also the dynastic name of the ruling Imperial House of Japan. Japanese his ...

in 1992 and back to

in 2012. IBM Tokyo Research Laboratory was established in 1982 as the Japan Science Institute (JSI) in Sanbanchō,

. It was IBM's first research laboratory in Asia.

Hisashi Kobayashi Hisashi Kobayashi (Japanese: 小林久志 ''Kobayashi Hisashi''; born on June 13, 1938) is the Sherman Fairchild University Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Emeritus at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey. Hi ...

was appointed the founding director of TRL in 1982; he served as director until 1986. 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 IBM Yamato Facility located in the city of Yamato, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, is where IBM's research and development activities were done for IBM's worldwide and Asia-Pacific region market. Its buildings were designed by the architecture firm ...

Kanagawa Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-densest at . Its geographic area of makes it fifth-smallest. Kana ...

in 1993. In 1993, world record was accomplished for generation of continuous coherent

Ultraviolet Ultraviolet (UV) is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelength from 10 nanometer, nm (with a corresponding frequency around 30 Hertz, PHz) to 400 nm (750 Hertz, THz), shorter than that of visible light, but longer than ...

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. The team led by

Chieko Asakawa (b. 1958) is a blind Japanese computer scientist, known for her work at IBM Research – Tokyo in accessibility.. A Netscape browser plug-in she developed, the IBM Home Page Reader, became the most widely used web-to-speech system available. She ...

( :ja:浅川智恵子),

IBM Fellow An IBM Fellow is an appointed position at IBM made by IBM's CEO. Typically only four to nine (eleven in 2014) IBM Fellows are appointed each year, in May or June. Fellow is the highest honor a scientist, engineer, or programmer at IBM can achie ...

since 2009, provided basic technology for IBM's software programs for the visually handicapped,

IBM Home Page Reader Home Page Reader (Hpr) was a computer program, a self-voicing web browser designed for people who are blind. It was developed by IBM from the work of Chieko Asakawa at IBM Japan. The screen reader met World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) HTML 4.01 s ...

in 1997 and IBM aiBrowser ( :ja:aiBrowser) in 2007. TRL moved back to Tokyo in 2012, this time at IBM Toyosu Facility.

Research

TRL researchers are responsible for numerous breakthroughs in sciences and engineering. The researchers have presented multiple papers at international conferences, and published numerous papers in international journals. They have also contributed to the products and services of IBM, and patent filings. TRL conducts research in microdevices,

system software System software is software designed to provide a platform for other software. Examples of system software include operating systems (OS) like macOS, Linux, Android and Microsoft Windows, computational science software, game engines, search engin ...

security Security is protection from, or resilience against, potential harm (or other unwanted coercive change) caused by others, by restraining the freedom of others to act. Beneficiaries (technically referents) of security may be of persons and social ...

and

privacy Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively. The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of a ...

analytics Analytics is the systematic computational analysis of data or statistics. It is used for the discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data. It also entails applying data patterns toward effective decision-making. It ...

and

optimization Mathematical optimization (alternatively spelled ''optimisation'') or mathematical programming is the selection of a best element, with regard to some criterion, from some set of available alternatives. It is generally divided into two subfi ...

human computer interaction Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, an ...

embedded systems An embedded system is a computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is ''embedded'' as ...

, and services sciences.

Other activities

TRL collaborates with the Japanese universities, and support their research programs. IBM donates its equipment such as servers, storage systems, and so forth to the Japanese universities to support their research programs under the Shared University Research (SUR) program. 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 Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

chemistry Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...

, and

electronics The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...

Israel

IBM Research – Haifa, previously known as the Haifa Research Lab (HRL) was founded as a small scientific center in 1972. 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 Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...

, 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. Dr. 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 Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) ( he, אוניברסיטת בן-גוריון בנגב, ''Universitat Ben-Guriyon baNegev'') is a public research university in Beersheba, Israel. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has five campuses: the ...

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 Rüschlikon is a municipality in the district of Horgen in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland. It is located on the west shore of Lake Zürich. Coat of arms Its coat of arms features a white shield showing a red rose with a yellow center an ...

, near Zurich,

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

. In 1956, IBM opened their first European research laboratory in

Adliswil Adliswil is a town and a municipality in the district of Horgen in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland. The official language of Adliswil is (the Swiss variety of Standard) German, but the main spoken language is the local variant of the Alem ...

, Switzerland, near Zurich. The lab moved to its own campus in neighboring Rüschlikon in 1962. The Zurich lab is staffed by a multicultural and interdisciplinary team of a few hundred permanent research staff members, graduate students and post-doctoral 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 Zurich lab is world-renowned for its scientific achievements—most notably Nobel Prizes in physics in 1986 and 1987 for the invention of the

Nobel Prize in Physics 1986
/ref> and the discovery of

,Nobel Prize in Physics 1987
/ref> respectively. Other key inventions include

trellis modulation In telecommunication, trellis modulation (also known as trellis coded modulation, or simply TCM) is a modulation scheme that transmits information with high efficiency over band-limited channels such as telephone lines. Gottfried Ungerboeck invent ...

, which revolutionized data transmission over telephone lines;

Token Ring Token Ring network IBM hermaphroditic connector with locking clip. Screen contacts are prominently visible, gold-plated signal contacts less so. Token Ring is a computer networking technology used to build local area networks. It was introduc ...

, which became a standard for

local area network A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, school, laboratory, university campus or office building. By contrast, a wide area network (WAN) not only covers a larger ...

s and a highly successful IBM product; the

Secure Electronic Transaction Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) is a communications protocol standard for securing credit card transactions over networks, specifically, the Internet. SET was not itself a payment system, but rather a set of security protocols and formats that ...

(SET) standard used for highly secure payments; and the

Java Card OpenPlatform {{Infobox OS , name = Java Card OpenPlatform , logo = , screenshot = , caption = , developer = IBM, > 2007 NXP , source_model = , kernel_type ...

(JCOP), a

smart card A smart card, chip card, or integrated circuit card (ICC or IC card) is a physical electronic authentication device, used to control access to a resource. It is typically a plastic credit card-sized card with an embedded integrated circuit (IC) c ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

. Most recently the lab was involved in the development of SuperMUC, a supercomputer that is cooled using hot water. The Zurich 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 Zurich 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 A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...

, which is based on developing an IT roadmap for the

Square Kilometer Array The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is an intergovernmental international radio telescope project being built in Australia (low-frequency) and South Africa (mid-frequency). The combining infrastructure, the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKA ...

. The research projects pursued at the IBM Zurich 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 IBM Research is the research and development division for IBM, an American Multinational corporation, multinational information technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, with operations in over 170 countries. IBM Research is the larges ...

, which is located on the same campus in Rüschlikon.

Publications

*
IBM Journal of Research and Development
'

References

External links

IBM Research Official Website

Research History Highlights
(''Top Innovations'')
Research history by year

Oral history interview with Martin Schwarzschild
head of Watson Scientific Computation Laboratory at Columbia University, Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota
IBM Research's technical journals
{{authority control IBM facilities

Research Research is "creativity, creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular att ...

Computer science organizations Research and development organizations

History

Notable IBM researchers

Laboratories

Almaden in Silicon Valley

Australia

Brazil

Japan

History

Research

Other activities

Israel

History

Switzerland

Publications

References

Further reading

External links