The announcement

Ibm closes research department in China: 1,000 employees made redundant

The measure affects staff reductions in operations between Beijing, Shanghai, Dalian and other locations where access to the company's research and testing systems was recently revoked

26 August 2024

Un visitatore passa davanti allo stand di IBM durante l’International Consumer Electronics Show Asia (CES Asia) a Shanghai. (Photo by Stringer / Imaginechina / Imaginechina via AFP)

2' min read

Ibm closes its entire research and development (R&D) department in China, hitting more than 1,000 employees, and aims to relocate it to other infrastructure bases abroad.

This was reported by Jiemian News, a Shanghai-based digital media, citing an announcement by Jack Hergenrother, Vice President of Ibm Global Enterprise Systems Development, at the meeting of the entire Ibm China System Center staff.

The measure involves the reduction of personnel in operations between Beijing, Shanghai, Dalian and other locations where access to the company's research and testing systems was recently revoked. Ibm China has about 12,000 employees.

Hergenrother said that the company made the difficult decision to move its infrastructure business, which has been declining in recent years in China, to other countries in order to be closer to customers based on market opportunities.

Big Blue has already conducted several rounds of layoffs worldwide, including one in January 2023 announcing 3,900 redundancies. In the second half of the year it announced a hiring freeze and planned to replace nearly 8,000 jobs with artificial intelligence.

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Last March, according to media reports, the staff reduction target in some of Ibm's departments was 80 per cent.

Assuring that the changes will not affect Ibm's ability to provide support to customers in Greater China, the company - Jiemian News added - explained that 'Chinese enterprises, particularly private ones, are increasingly focusing on seizing the opportunities offered by hybrid cloud andartificial intelligence technologies, and Ibm's local strategic objective in China is to leverage our extensive experience in technology and consulting to form a team with the corresponding capabilities to help Chinese customers create solutions that meet their needs'.