IBM firms up Albany research role
IBM has firmed up its plan to stay in the chip innovation business even as it moves forward to exit the manufacturing part of the game.
The move announced Friday is simple. The contingent of IBM scientists and engineers, about 220 of them, who work at New York's hot high-tech research center, Albany NanoTech, will formally become part of IBM Research.
That, of course, is essentially what they've been doing – research for IBM, and other partners in the very successful team enterprise whose early roots date back to Gov. Mario Cuomo, which got massive support from Gov. George Pataki and has been pushed forward by every governor and key political leader since, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
This work supports IBM's two facilities in Dutchess County, among others. One is the East Fishkilll chip manufacturing complex, which will be sold to GlobalFoundries under a deal the two companies expect to close this year, after which Global will be IBM's chip supplier.
The other Dutchess site is in Poughkeepsie, which uses various high-powered chips in its z Systems mainframe computers and high-end Power Systems, and depends of those chips staying at the leading edge in each new generation. The system rolled out this month is the z13, the 13th generation of mainframes.
Numerous IBMers have been dispatched north to SUNY Albany's campus for many years to invent next-generation microchips. Now, the state university is spinning off its College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering to become the SUNY Polytechnic Institute. IBM has been heavily involved since the earliest days and other companies have chimed in.
"More so than Oracle or Intel or others, IBM is extending their academic reach and they're extending in the home state more than all the others combined," said Richard Doherty, research director for Envisioneering Group in Seaford, Nassau County. "They know where their talent comes from."
"It's a very good sign," Doherty said. "I think it will transfer into more work-study and more jobs as well, and help the company to come back to the glory we all like to associate with it."
IBM, while exiting the making of chips, is sticking to a couple of other aspects, which are designing them and pressing along the path of innovation for future levels of basic chip technology. This is a $3 billion investment by IBM, most of which is in New York state.
Becoming a formal part of IBM Research gives more visibility to this work. This division of IBM invests several billion each year and IBM boasts that it is "the technology industry's largest and most influential research organization."
It's headed by John E. Kelly III, senior vice president for solutions portfolio and research. He said in IBM's statement that these IBMers "possess unique skills and capabilities, positioning our company to drive development of the next generation of chips and to fuel a new era of computing."
Craig Wolf: 845-437-4815, cwolf@poughkeepsiejournal.com, Twitter: @craigwolfPJ
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