IBM Research Center Yorktown, New York

The Thomas J. Watson Research Center, at Yorktown Heights, is the headquarters for IBM Research, named after the founder of IBM who was CEO from 1915 to 1952 (and who was succeeded by his son, Thomas Watson Jr., who ran IBM until 1971). The building is a modernist crescent-shaped structure with hundreds of windowless offices, designed by Eero Saarinen and completed in 1961. IBM Research is often cited as the largest industrial research company in the world. It has a few other research campuses in the USA, including at Cambridge Massachusetts, near MIT, focusing on cybersecurity and AI; the Almaden Research Center in the hills above Silicon Valley, which opened in 1986; in Austin, Texas, established in 1995; and in Albany, New York, focusing on nanotechnology. IBM, one of the largest and most important early computer technology companies, emanated from upstate New York. It employs more than 300,000 people, and its corporate headquarters is nearby in Armonk.