IBM Research Intern 2027: AI Systems

Introduction

IBM Research is seeking a highly motivated PhD student to join the AI Native Systems organization for a 2027 summer internship focused on advancing the efficiency, reliability, and scalability of agentic AI systems for IBM Z. The selected candidate will conduct research at the intersection of large language models, AI agents, machine learning systems, adaptive memory management, and enterprise infrastructure, developing novel techniques that enable agents to acquire, retain, retrieve, summarize, and utilize only the information necessary to successfully complete complex, long-horizon system-management tasks. Working closely with IBM Research scientists and academic collaborators, the intern will design, implement, and evaluate adaptive information-control mechanisms within the Finn/Paver agent framework, contributing to next-generation AI capabilities for IBM Z and Spyre-enabled environments while gaining experience in cutting-edge research with potential impact on future products, publications, and intellectual property.

Your role and responsibilities

As an intern, you will be responsible for:

• Research, design, and prototype adaptive information-control mechanisms for agentic AI systems operating in IBM Z environments.
• Define and model minimal sufficient agent state, including observations, retrieved evidence, memory, interaction history, tool outputs, and task progress information.
• Develop and evaluate techniques for information acquisition, retrieval, summarization, memory management, context compression, and evidence-sufficiency estimation in long-horizon AI agent workflows.
• Implement experimental solutions in Python and integrate selected approaches into the Finn/Paver system-management agent or representative agent frameworks.
• Design and execute experiments on representative z/OS management tasks, measuring task completion reliability, context utilization, memory consumption, tool usage, latency, and inference efficiency.
• Analyze tradeoffs between agent performance, information efficiency, computational cost, and system resource requirements for on-platform execution using IBM Spyre and future IBM Z AI accelerators.
• Collaborate with IBM Research scientists and academic partners to review results, refine algorithms, and translate research findings into practical agent architectures.
• Document research outcomes through technical reports, presentations, demonstrations, and potential publications or intellectual property disclosures.

Required education

Master's Degree

Preferred education

Doctorate Degree

Required technical and professional expertise

• Currently pursuing a PhD in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or a related technical field.
• Demonstrated experience in machine learning, deep learning, large language models (LLMs), AI agents, natural language processing, or related AI research areas.
• Strong programming skills in Python and experience with machine learning frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, or equivalent.
• Experience designing and evaluating experiments, analyzing results, and developing research prototypes in AI, machine learning, or distributed systems.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to document technical work and present research findings to technical and business audiences.

Preferred technical and professional experience

• Research experience in agentic AI, large language models (LLMs), retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), AI memory systems, or long-context reasoning.
• Experience developing, fine-tuning, or evaluating AI/ML models using PyTorch, Hugging Face, or related frameworks.
• Knowledge of AI systems topics such as context compression, information retrieval, memory management, planning, tool use, or inference optimization.
• Experience conducting independent research resulting in publications, open-source contributions, patents, technical reports, or academic projects.
• Familiarity with Linux-based environments, distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, enterprise computing platforms, or system administration workflows.
• Interest in AI efficiency, privacy, security, and trustworthy AI systems.

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

IBM Research Intern 2027: AI Systems

Date posted

02-Sep-2026

Job ID

131598

City / Township / Village

Yorktown Heights, San Jose, Cambridge

State / Province

New York, Massachusetts, California

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