In terms of patents IBM is second to none and in the last 28 years has always ranked first in terms of the number of registered inventions. In the only 2020, he obtained 9. 130 patents , attributed to more than 9. 000 inventors scattered among 54 Countries, including Italy, which contributed with 102 inventions. Over the past year, the company has focused on four areas: artificial intelligence, hybrid cloud, cybersecurity and quantum computing .

IBM’s patents in the field of hybrid cloud

With more than 3. 000 patents obtained in 2020, the hybrid cloud is one of the areas where IBM has innovated the most. Specifically, the company has developed technology to intelligently distribute processing across cloud, edge devices, and intermediate devices by optimizing the hybrid cloud for projects involving IoT, such as driving instructions provided by latency-sensitive GPS.

L’ attention to this area is not accidental, since IBM is investing heavily in edge and hybrid cloud, which have characterized the roadmap 2020 of company with the launch of IBM Edge Application Manager and IBM Cloud for Telco . The first is a solution for the remote autonomous implementation and management of AI, analytics and IoT projects, capable of offering real-time analysis and in-depth insights. IBM Cloud for Telco, on the other hand, is an open platform designed to accelerate business transformation in the telecommunications sector that will allow customers to make the most of the potential of 5G .

IBM’s Commitment to Artificial Intelligence

In the field of artificial intelligence there are about 2. 300 the patents that IBM registered last year . Moreover, thanks to IBM Watson AI is one of the sectors where the giant is innovating the most , especially as regards natural language processing. In 2020, Watson was empowered with Project Debater, a new technology capable of elaborating structured speeches on specific topics “simply” by analyzing a large quantity of texts.

IBM’s patents on quantum computing and security

These amount to more than 1. 400 the patents obtained by the IBM inventors in the field of computer security and the most significant is that relating to homomorphic cryptography, which allows you to perform calculations on encrypted data. As regards quantum computing, one of the company’s priorities, two particularly important innovations are reported: a solution to simplify the mapping of quantum molecular simulation and a patent that lays the foundations for investigating risk analyzes on a quantum computer more accurately and efficiently, an area IBM is researching with leading financial institutions.