The IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center is the headquarters for the IBM Research Division -- the largest industrial research organization in the world with eight labs worldwide. Established in 1961, the Watson Research Center is located in Westchester County, New York and Cambridge, Massachusetts and spans three sites and four buildings -- the main laboratory in Yorktown Heights, two buildings in Hawthorne, and one building in Cambridge. An approximate 1,790 people are employed between these four facilities.
The research focuses primarily on IT hardware (ranging from exploratory work in the physical sciences to semiconductors and systems technology); software (including areas as diverse as security, programming, mathematics and speech technologies); and services, with a focus on applying them to transform businesses in a wide range of industries.