Why one of America’s top tech companies has called Dutchess County home for nearly 75 years
A corporate name synonymous with innovation and reinvention, IBM has a historic legacy in Dutchess County, N.Y. Over the last several decades, IBM operations in the county have generated large numbers of jobs and produced some of “Big Blue’s” most iconic technologies, including all of IBM’s mainframes and IBM Deep Blue, which famously became the first computer to beat a world chess master.
IBM’s presence in Dutchess County began in 1941 when the company purchased a second campus in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. In 1962, after IBM grew to more than 100,000 employees nationwide, the company expanded to more than 400 acres in East Fishkill, N.Y. Here, IBM introduced its first mainframe computer, the System/360, a server that revolutionized business due to its use of semiconductor technology and established IBM as a leader in the computing industry.
Today, Dutchess County continues to serve as one of IBM’s top U.S. manufacturing locations, churning out mainframe technology for the 21st century, known as z Systems. In 2017, the Fortune 500 company unveiled its latest edition, IBM z14,which is capable of computing 12 billion cybersecure exchanges daily and supports 87 percent of credit card transactions around the globe, totaling almost $8 trillion payments annually.
Currently, IBM’s Dutchess County workforce is made up of more than 50 percent engineers, with many coming from nearby schools like Marist College. The company’s Dutchess County employees have also secured more than 6,000 patents over the course of IBM’s history. While its focus has long been on providing the best technology, IBM has also made strides in design. In 2017, IBM Poughkeepsie was awarded the title of IBM’s 37th official “Design Studio,” making it part of a global network of offices that champion IBM Design Thinking.
In September of 2019, IBM continued its push toward large-scale adoption of quantum computing with the opening of the first IBM Quantum Computation Center in Poughkeepsie, NY. This center, "is now home to more than 20 quantum systems executing more than 2 billion circuits daily. It is the world’s largest fleet of quantum computing systems for commercial and research activity." The opening of the IBM Quantum Computation Center is further evidence that after years of development, IBM is taking the lead in moving the technology out of the research lab and putting it directly into the hands of developers, researchers, academic and enterprise users, and quantum technology and service providers.
Although the company downsized in the 1990’s from its massive 1960-era operations, previously-owned IBM property still plays a major role in Dutchess County. In 2017, thanks to the help of Think Dutchess, Connecticut real estate group National Resources announced further plans to redevelop 300 acres of the campus into a mixed-use office, retail, hotel and residential development, known as iPark. Fast forward to today, and iPark is a hub of food and beverage manufacturing, logistics, and advanced manufacturing industry clusters.
To learn more about IBM’s longstanding presence in Dutchess County, download the inaugural issue of Think Dutchess Magazine. For more information on expanding or relocating your business to Dutchess County, please contact Philip Scarano III, Director of Business Attraction.