CAN AI MAKE 'BIG BLUE' GROW AGAIN?

CEO ARVIND KRISHNA IS HELPING IBM REGAIN ITS SWAGGER—AND RECOVER FROM A TOUGH DECADE.

- BY SHARON GOLDMAN

THE IBM WATSON Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., is a mid-century modern marvel of sweeping curves and soaring glass. Designed in the early 1960s and nestled in rolling hills north of New York City, the building was the final project of the visionary architect Eero Saarinen, known for futuristic designs that captured the spirit of technological advancement, like the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and the TWA Flight Center at JFK airport.

The iconic architecture is a striking reminder of what IBM once represented: relentless innovation, industry-shaping technologies, and undisputed dominance. This was the birthplace of the punch card, the magnetic-stripe credit card, and the personal computer. It made towering mainframe computers that were indispensable to banking and health care.

But by the time CEO Arvind Krishna strode into the building in November 2021 for the company's annual Global Technology Outlook briefing, the building was in danger of becoming a relic of corporate history—as was IBM itself.

The venerable company had barely half the revenue it generated at its 2011 high-water mark. In recent decades, it had ceded the personal-computer market to Microsoft while becoming, for many, a symbol of rigid management and bloat. Even more famously, IBM had face-planted in artificial intelligence, as the much-hyped Watson platform failed to live up to its initial promise. By April 2020, when Krishna became CEO, IBM was the only one among the 17 U.S. tech companies valued at $100 billion or more to have lost market value over the previous eight years.