SAN JOSE — A legendary IBM San Jose research hub that produced numerous cutting-edge scientific and technical breakthroughs is slated to close and shift its workers to another IBM lab a few miles away.
IBM, one of the world’s most prestigious corporate names, is closing its Almaden Research Center at 650 Harry Road in south San Jose, the tech titan has confirmed.
IBM Silicon Valley Lab at 555 Bailey Avenue in the Coyote Valley region of south San Jose, seen in 2024. (Google Maps)
The tech company will move its researchers and workers from the Almaden Research Center to IBM’s Silicon Valley Lab at 555 Bailey Road on the edges of Coyote Valley in San Jose.
IBM described the shutdown and consolidation as a way for its researchers to operate in a more efficient and collaborative fashion.
IBM Almaden Research Center at 650 Harry Road in south San Jose, as seen in 2016. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
“We look forward to bringing all of our IBMers under one roof at our Silicon Valley Lab, working together side-by-side, to drive more collaboration and to continue to deliver new innovations, from artificial intelligence to quantum computing, for our company and clients,” an IBM spokesperson said in comments emailed to this news organization.
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The pending consolidation and departure of the researchers and other workers at the Almaden Lab mark the end of decades of cutting-edge achievements that occurred at that site, nestled in the Santa Teresa hills.
“IBM has been spearheading the development of breakthrough technologies in Silicon Valley for over 60 years,” the company spokesperson said.
The tech titan’s Almaden Lab is an innovation hub whose breakthroughs involve countless technical and scientific endeavors.
Artificial intelligence, quantum computing, cybersecurity, machine learning, cloud technologies and data storage are among the major scientific advances of the current technical era that the Almaden complex has produced.
Yet over the nearly 40 years since the IBM Almaden complex opened in 1986, the site’s researchers also invented the first ink-jet printer prototype, the world’s smallest disk drive, and the first disk drive, along with encryption for DVD and Blu-ray devices.
In 2014, William Moerner, a researcher at the IBM Almaden site, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Moerner’s work paved the way for the creation of optical storage technologies that many experts see as the foundation for the modern tech industry.
Research at the Almaden lab also led to the creation of a computer chip called TrueNorth that mimics how the human brain works. The chip was so cutting-edge that it was accepted into the Computer History Museum.
The Almaden lab is part of a 700-acre site in the San Jose hills that IBM owns, according to real estate documents.
The merging of the lab sites could be completed by sometime in 2026 or even by the end of this year.
“This is primarily a site consolidation, which will take place over the next six to nine months,” the IBM spokesperson said. “We do not expect significant workforce impacts.”
The IBM Silicon Valley Lab at 555 Bailey occupies a parcel that totals 200 acres, a Santa Clara County property database shows.
Numerous residential subdivisions are located next to or near the western and southern boundaries of the IBM Almaden lab site on the Harry Road hilltop. The northern and eastern sections of the property border primarily open space, a review of a county mapping database shows.
IBM’s tradition of tech innovation in San Jose stretches back to a time when Silicon Valley wasn’t even known by that name.
In 1952, IBM established its first West Coast lab at a south San Jose site on Cottle Road. That lab’s achievements included the creation of the first magnetic disk drive device.
Those IBM sites at and near Cottle Road in south San Jose are now dotted with new suburban homes and apartments as well as a Costco retail warehouse.
“We are currently exploring options for the Almaden space,” the IBM spokesperson said, referring to the soon-to-be vacated Harry Road site in south San Jose.