IBM: the American company behind hybrid cloud, watsonx and mainframes

International Business Machines Corporation, known as IBM, is an American technology company that sells hybrid cloud and AI software, consulting services and infrastructure such as mainframe computers. It is headquartered in Armonk, New York, and does business in more than 175 countries.

IBM is one of the oldest names in computing, and it is now centred on hybrid cloud and artificial intelligence. It reported revenue of $67.5 billion for 2025, with software sales up 11 percent and infrastructure sales up 12 percent.

Overview and Founding

The company was incorporated in New York State on June 16, 1911, as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co., or C-T-R. It was formed by joining three firms: the Computing Scale Co. of America, the Tabulating Machine Co. and the International Time Recording Co. of New York.

Thomas J. Watson Sr. became president of C-T-R in 1915 and turned its attention to engineering, research and international growth. In 1924 the company adopted the name International Business Machines Corporation.

Over the decades IBM built tabulating machines, mainframes and personal computers, and its personal computers ran an operating system supplied by Microsoft under a contract described in our profile of Bill Gates.

Key Milestones

• 1911: The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co. is incorporated in New York on June 16.
• 1915: Thomas J. Watson Sr. becomes president of C-T-R.
• 1924: C-T-R adopts the name International Business Machines Corporation.
• 2019: IBM closes its purchase of Red Hat on July 9, for about $34 billion.
• 2020: Arvind Krishna becomes chief executive on April 6.
• 2021: IBM completes the separation of its managed infrastructure services business as Kyndryl on November 3.
• 2023: IBM announces the watsonx AI and data platform on May 9.
• 2025: IBM completes its acquisition of HashiCorp on February 27.

What It Does

In 2021 IBM narrowed its focus by spinning off its managed infrastructure services unit as Kyndryl. IBM holders received one Kyndryl share for every five IBM shares, and Kyndryl began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on November 4, 2021.

IBM reports its results in three main segments: Software, Consulting and Infrastructure. In 2025 Software grew 11 percent, Infrastructure 12 percent and Consulting 2 percent.

The Red Hat deal of 2019 gave IBM a set of open source tools, built on technologies such as Linux and Kubernetes, that let companies run the same applications across public clouds and their own data centres. IBM calls this approach hybrid cloud. It paid $190 per share in cash for Red Hat.

watsonx, launched in 2023, has three parts: watsonx.ai for building and tuning AI models, watsonx.data for storing and preparing data, and watsonx.governance for managing how AI is used. By January 2026 IBM said its generative AI book of business had passed $12.5 billion.

The HashiCorp purchase, agreed in April 2024 at $35 per share in cash for an enterprise value of $6.4 billion, added software that automates and secures cloud infrastructure. IBM said these tools would work with Red Hat, watsonx and IBM Consulting as one hybrid cloud platform.

Mainframes remain part of the business. In its January 2026 results IBM said strong take-up of the newest generation of its mainframe platform had driven double-digit growth in infrastructure revenue.

The company also shows up in news about the wider AI industry. In October 2026 IBM was among the companies said to be planning to use Nvidia’s Minerva tool for AI data centres.

In Numbers

• Revenue: $67.5 billion in 2025, up 8 percent.
• Fourth-quarter revenue: $19.7 billion in the last quarter of 2025, up 12 percent.
• Free cash flow: $14.7 billion in 2025.
• Generative AI book of business: more than $12.5 billion, reported in January 2026.
• Facilities: about 39 million square feet owned or leased worldwide at the end of 2025.
• Revenue from outside the United States: about 60 percent, according to its 2025 annual report.

Leadership

IBM’s official biography names Arvind Krishna as chairman, president and chief executive officer. He has led the company since April 2020 and chaired its board since January 2021. For 2026 the company has said it expects revenue growth of more than 5 percent at constant currency.