Founded in 1911, IBM is one of the oldest technology companies in the US, with sprawling interests across many sectors. It’s also one of the world’s largest employers, with more than 352,000 staff around the world. Over the years, IBM has gotten rid of many of its less-than-profitable businesses, including printers and PCs, and right now, is in the middle of yet another transformation. As it announced in October 2020, the company is getting rid of its legacy IT infrastructure businesses to focus on the sectors it believes are its future: namely hybrid cloud computing services and artificial intelligence. Since it completed its acquisition of open-source software firm Red Hat in 2019, the company has focused more on its hybrid cloud platform, a high-margin business. It also continues to build out its AI research, often focused around its Watson brand. Though, in both arenas, the company faces stiff competition from younger tech giants, like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.
IBM was early, you might argue too early, to AI. Now, CEO Arvind Krishna thinks big bets like Watsonx and quantum computing will start to pay off.
In August, the companies said they were developing fault-tolerant quantum computers. Now, IBM says it can run a key error-correcting algorithm on AMD’s common and relatively cheap chip called a field programmable gate array, as reported by Reuters. IBM told The Verge that the study, not yet peer reviewed, is expected to be published on Monday.
The two companies are working to develop next-gen computing architectures that combine IBM’s quantum computers with AMD’s high-performance computing. IBM says the partnership could help it create fault-tolerant quantum computers by the end of the decade, allowing them to detect and fix errors in real time.
[IBM Newsroom]
More than 1,000 people will lose their jobs — and others will be relocated to sites outside China. This follows Microsoft’s similar move in May. In a call, an IBM exec blamed increasing competition in China.
What’s a qubit? Are quantum computers useful yet? And how wrong was Ant-Man, anyway?
Meet Quantum System 2, a 22 ft wide, 12 ft high, cryogenically cooled package that IBM calls the first “modular, utility-scale quantum computer system,” using three of the company’s new Quantum Heron 133-qubit processors. An updated roadmap says that by 2033, its capabilities could go far beyond today’s supercomputer platforms.
For more, check out Nilay Patel’s Decoder interview with Jerry Chow, IBM’s director of quantum systems.
Goetz was awarded a patent for data-sorting software in 1968, after a three-year fight with the US Patent Office over whether software could even be patented.
The New York Times writes that the company he co-founded, Applied Data Research, filed an antitrust suit IBM in 1969 over its bundled hardware and software. IBM agreed to unbundle, but ADR didn’t let up.
Applied Data Research nonetheless continued its lawsuit. It was settled in August 1970; the terms included an agreement to supply one of its programs, Autoflow, to IBM.
“He not only got what he wanted,” Ms. Jacobs said, “A.D.R. started selling more products and opened the doors to the independent software industry.”
