Even with steeply declining revenue, IBM continues to invest billions in its massive R&D efforts. Can it pay off?
In January 2015, IBM and one of its clients, candy maker Mars, announced an ambitious plan to dramatically improve food safety. Rather than merely testing food samples for common pathogens, they will go deeper, gathering and classifying the DNA and RNA found in the samples. Then, by analyzing the environment in manufacturing plants (and eventually on farms, warehouses, and other places in the supply chain), they will try to determine when and where dangerous bacteria and viruses tend to grow. The eventual goal: to give food workers and health regulators a better idea of what triggers contamination and, perhaps, a chance to predict food safety problems in advance.