Summer Research Intern 2027 - Edge communications processing with AI accelerators

Introduction

IBM Research is advancing artificial intelligence through innovations in accelerator architectures, software, and hardware-software co-design. Join a world-class team of researchers developing technologies that bring efficient intelligence to cloud, edge, and emerging computing platforms.

Your role and responsibilities

IBM Research is seeking a Summer Intern to contribute to the development of advanced AI-driven solutions for performant communication and computing systems at the edge. The successful candidate will explore, develop, and optimize AI workloads on custom accelerator architectures, with a focus on efficient inference, kernel development, and performance analysis.

The work of this research internship sits at the intersection of AI systems, signal processing, and computer architecture. The successful candidate will investigate how emerging AI models and algorithms can be efficiently mapped onto specialized computing platforms for applications in wireless communications, edge intelligence, and next-generation computing systems. Example application areas include wireless signal processing, 5G/6G communications, integrated sensing and communications (ISAC), and AI-enhanced network intelligence.

The intern will work closely with researchers developing novel accelerator technologies and software ecosystems, contributing both creative research ideas and hands-on implementation. Success in this role requires curiosity, strong analytical skills, and the ability to translate complex algorithms into highly efficient implementations.

Responsibilities: Develop and optimize AI kernels and inference workloads for custom accelerator architectures. Evaluate and benchmark performance, efficiency, and scalability across representative workloads. Explore mappings of signal-processing and communication algorithms onto specialized computing platforms. Prototype and implement algorithms using low-level programming techniques and hardware-aware software optimization. Collaborate with researchers across AI systems, computer architecture, and communications domains. Contribute to the identification of new opportunities for AI acceleration in performant communication and computing applications operating at the edge.

Required education

Bachelor's Degree

Preferred education

Master's Degree

Required technical and professional expertise

• Strong programming skills and experience with low-level software development and performance optimization.
• Strong foundations in mathematics, algorithms, and numerical methods.
• Experience with AI inference, machine learning systems, signal processing, or related computational workloads.
• Familiarity with digital systems, computer architecture, accelerator architectures, DSP architectures, or FPGA-based implementations.
• Demonstrated ability to independently develop, prototype, and evaluate complex technical solut.

Preferred technical and professional experience

• Experience implementing and optimizing algorithms on custom computing platforms, accelerators, FPGAs, DSPs, or related systems.
• Familiarity with AI accelerator architectures, domain-specific architectures, or hardware/software co-design methodologies.
• Experience with kernel development, performance analysis, profiling, and benchmarking.
• Knowledge of machine learning models and inference frameworks.
• Background in wireless communications, communication systems, computer vision, sensor processing, or related domains.
• Demonstrated research experience through publications, open-source contributions, or significant technical projects.

ABOUT BUSINESS UNIT

IBM Research is the organic growth engine of IBM and an innovation engine for our customers and partners. As part of this mission, IBM Research anticipates and examines 'What's Next in Computing' to ultimately create and integrate the technologies the world relies upon to solve big challenges and unlock new opportunities. We create and pioneer new markets for IBM, our partners and customers as exemplified in our ongoing quest to reach practical and large-scale quantum computing. Across IBM Research, we realize the power and potential to accelerate discovery with our partners and clients by combining the power of high performance computing, AI, and Quantum, all integrated through the hybrid cloud.

YOUR LIFE @ IBM

In a world where technology never stands still, we understand that, dedication to our clients success, innovation that matters, and trust and personal responsibility in all our relationships, lives in what we do as IBMers as we strive to be the catalyst that makes the world work better.

Being an IBMer means you'll be able to learn and develop yourself and your career, you'll be encouraged to be courageous and experiment everyday, all whilst having continuous trust and support in an environment where everyone can thrive whatever their personal or professional background.

Our IBMers are growth minded, always staying curious, open to feedback and learning new information and skills to constantly transform themselves and our company. They are trusted to provide on-going feedback to help other IBMers grow, as well as collaborate with colleagues keeping in mind a team focused approach to include different perspectives to drive exceptional outcomes for our customers. The courage our IBMers have to make critical decisions everyday is essential to IBM becoming the catalyst for progress, always embracing challenges with resources they have to hand, a can-do attitude and always striving for an outcome focused approach within everything that they do.

Are you ready to be an IBMer?

ABOUT IBM

IBM's greatest invention is the IBMer. We believe that through the application of intelligence, reason and science, we can improve business, society and the human condition, bringing the power of an open hybrid cloud and AI strategy to life for our clients and partners around the world.

Restlessly reinventing since 1911, we are not only one of the largest corporate organizations in the world, we're also one of the biggest technology and consulting employers, with many of the Fortune 500 companies relying on the IBM Cloud to run their business.

At IBM, we pride ourselves on being an early adopter of artificial intelligence, quantum computing and blockchain. Now it's time for you to join us on our journey to being a responsible technology innovator and a force for good in the world.

IBM is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, or other characteristics protected by the applicable law. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.

OTHER RELEVANT JOB DETAILS

Supplemental 1 employees may be eligible for up to 8 paid holidays, minimum of 56 hours paid sick time and the IBM Employee Stock Purchase Plan. IBM offers paid family medical leave and disability benefits to eligible employees where required by applicable law. This position was posted on the date cited in the key job details section and is anticipated to remain posted for 15 days from this date or less if not needed to fill the role. We consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable law.

The compensation range and benefits for this position are based on a full-time schedule for a full calendar year. The salary will vary depending on your job-related skills, experience and location. Pay increment and frequency of pay will be in accordance with employment classification and applicable laws. For part time roles, your compensation and benefits will be adjusted to reflect your hours. Benefits may be pro-rated for those who start working during the calendar year.

Job Title

Summer Research Intern 2027 - Edge communications processing with AI accelerators

Date posted

25-Sep-2026

Job ID

134474

City / Township / Village

Yorktown Heights

State / Province

New York

Country

United States

Work arrangement

Onsite

Area of work

Research

Employment type

Co-Op (Fixed Term)

Contract type

Internship

Projected Minimum Salary per year

89,280.00

Projected Maximum Salary per year

163,680.00

Position type

Internship

Travel required

No Travel

Company

(0147) International Business Machines Corporation

Shift

General (daytime)

Is this role a commissionable/sales incentive based position?

No