Impact Science
In our impact science disciplines, we apply deep technical expertise to some of the world’s the most pressing challenges, while advancing the underlying science and creating business and societal value. Our main focus areas are the future of health, climate, and work.
Overview
We are only a few decades into the 21st century, and yet humanity is more informed, better connected, and more capable than at any point in our collective history. But with these advances come large, existential challenges: How do we improve our healthcare to provide the next pandemic? How can we mitigate the increasing threat of climate change? How will AI, automation, and other technologies change that nature of work in the future?
In impact science, we’re aiming to address so of these questions, building on the unique skills, capabilities, and knowledge base that exists in IBM Research and across the company more broadly. We’re relying on our deep expertise in fundamental technologies like AI, the hybrid cloud, data science, data protection and governance, security, and materials science to do so.
We’re working to help companies transition to low-carbon and carbon-capture strategies; to build models on how to more accurately predict and track diseases; and how the world of work will shift as companies begin return to offices. We want to help answer the challenges ahead of us with science.
Our work
- ResearchKim Martineau
- From simulated steps to real-world care: AI learns how we walk for neurologyResearchPeter Hess
- A faster way to screen supply chains for harmful chemicalsResearchKim Martineau
- IBM and ESA open-source TerraMind, the best performing generative AI model for Earth observationReleaseAshley Peterson
- Simplifying geospatial AI with TerraTorch 1.0Technical noteRomeo Kienzler, Juan Bernabé-Moreno, Paolo Fraccaro, Bianca Zadrozny, Campbell Watson, Benedikt Blumenstiel, Joao Lucas de Sousa Almeida, Michael Johnston, Christian Pinto, and Michal Muszynski
- Photos: How IBM and NASA's new geospatial model is changing our view of the worldNewsKim Martineau
- See more of our work on Impact Science
Topics
- Climate and SustainabilityUsing AI and the hybrid cloud to accelerate the discovery of climate mitigation and adaption solutions to respond to the growing global climate emergency.
- Future of FinanceWe're working on core technology innovations that can move at the speed of a transaction for the financial services industry.
- Future of WorkWe're working on smart systems to help businesses prepare for the impending return to the office.
- Healthcare and Life SciencesWe're building systems that can convert reams of health data into useable information for clinicians the world over.
Publications
- Toward a Coherent Virtual Cell Model: Probing Biological World-Model Coherence in Transcriptomic Foundation Models- Noa Moriel
- Yishai Shimoni
- et al.
 
- 2025
- NeurIPS 2025
 
- Foundation Models Enabling Multi-Scale Battery Materials Discovery: From Molecules To Devices- Vidushi Sharma
- Andy Tek
- et al.
 
- 2025
- NeurIPS 2025
 
- Forging Time Series with Language: A Large Language Model Approach to Synthetic Data Generation- 2025
- NeurIPS 2025
 
- Enhancing Study-Level Inference from Clinical Trial Papers via Reinforcement Learning-Based Numeric Reasoning- Massimiliano Pronesti
- Michela Lorandi
- et al.
 
- 2025
- EMNLP 2025
 
- Engaging Visually Impaired People in Science Museums Through an Immersive Workshop: Practices, Challenges, and Opportunities- Xiyue Wang
- Seita Kayukawa
- et al.
 
- 2025
- ASSETS 2025
 
- Phrase-grounded Fact-checking for Automatically Generated Chest X-ray Reports- Razi Mahmood
- Diego Machado Reyes
- et al.
 
- 2025
- MICCAI 2025