IBM Announces $3B For Semiconductor Research

IBM is going to invest $3 billion on semiconductor research and development in the next five years towards the growing demand for cloud computing and Big Data systems. Since few weeks, there was a rumour that IBM will be selling its chip-manufacturing arm. But after the announcement it is very much clear that IBM is restructuring and strengthening its chip division.

IBM Research senior vice-president said John Kelly said "IBM engineers and scientists, along with our partners, are well suited for this challenge and are already working on the materials science and device engineering required to meet the demands of the emerging system requirements for cloud, big data, and cognitive systems. This new investment will ensure that we produce the necessary innovations to meet these challenges.”

IBM is going to develop alternative technologies for post-silicon era chips using a completely different methods. Scientists and other experts told that these are required because of the physical limitations of silicon-based semiconductors.  Click here to know more.

Twitter Paid $36 Million To IBM For Patents

Twitter paid $36 million to IBM for 900 patents as reported on the papers filed with the Securities Exchange Commission. After a threat last November by IBM to sue the social network over three patents, twitter dished out the amount to avoid lawsuit. Though the patent exchange was announced earlier this year but the financial amount was not disclosed until the papers became publicly available.

According to the source, it is seen that Twitter holds nearly 1,000 U.S. patents with 100 more applications pending approval as of date.

Twitter reported that “Many companies in these industries, including many of our competitors, have substantially larger patent and intellectual property portfolios than we do, which could make us a target for litigation as we may not be able to assert counterclaims against parties that sue us for patent, or other intellectual property infringement.”

IBM threatened with legal action late last year over three patents which were similar to their own. Some major giants have also come across the situation that Apple and Microsoft are investors in one patent company that has sued Google.

IBM Will Invest $1.2B Into Data Centers In 2014

IBM is now concentrating on its cloud space and willing to spend more than $1.2 billion this year to grow its global cloud footprint.

Senior vice-president of IBM Global Technology Services Erich Clementi said "IBM is continuing to invest in high growth areas. Last year, IBM made a big investment adding the $2 billion acquisition of SoftLayer to its existing high value cloud portfolio. Today’s announcement is another major step in driving a global expansion of IBM’s cloud footprint and helping clients drive transformation.”

This new cloud investments will provide business clients with the ability to place and control their data globally. IBM already spent around $2 billion to acquire SoftLayer Technologies Inc. which was the world’s largest privately held cloud computing infrastructure provider which obviously helped IBM in scoring better to compete with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and other cloud providers.

IBM started the cloud computing arena in 2007 and has spent more than $7 billion snapping up 15 smaller companies. After the acquisition, IBM’s data center count sat at 23. By the end of 2014, the company will have doubled that amount.