Earlier today, I had the honor of welcoming U.S. President Joe Biden and other distinguished guests at our site in Poughkeepsie, New York.

This was an exciting day for IBM and a unique opportunity to highlight our commitment to advancing critical innovations – from zSystems, to semiconductor design and manufacturing, to quantum computing and more.

The IBM innovations we showcased for the president today in Poughkeepsie are vital to the future of the world’s business, industry, and society, and they will greatly benefit from the CHIPS and Science Act. This law will help ensure a reliable and secure supply of next-generation chips, and help advance the science and business of quantum computing.

In many ways, our Poughkeepsie site symbolizes everything that makes IBM such a great and storied company. For decades, the site has ushered in innovations that have a major impact on the world. It produced data processing systems that made the U.S. social security system possible, made the Apollo Program that put a man on the moon a success, and powered businesses in every industry.

To this day, Poughkeepsie produces the latest generation of mainframes – IBM’s zSystems – which underpin the global economy. But the site is not just innovating for today. It is home to IBM’s first Quantum Computation Center – where a large number of quantum computers run in the cloud. Our vision is for the site to become a global hub of our quantum computing development, just as it is today for mainframes.

Poughkeepsie is also part of a broader ecosystem of innovation centers in New York’s Hudson Valley region – with other sites in Yorktown Heights and Albany – helping to push the boundaries of semiconductor design and manufacturing.

To support this important work, I was proud to announce today a plan to invest $20 billion across the Hudson Valley region over the next  10 years. The goal of the investments, which will be strengthened by close collaboration with New York State, is to unlock new discoveries and opportunities in semiconductors, hybrid cloud, AI, and quantum computing.

Hosting the president of the United States is a true honor. This was a day that all IBMers can be proud of. If you didn’t have a chance to watch the event live, I highly encourage you to watch the replay here.