IBM will reduce its workforce by a low single-digit percentage this quarter as it continues its shift towards software and AI-driven services, reported Bloomberg.
The company, which reported a headcount of around 270,000 at the end of 2024, indicated that the job cuts are part of routine operational reviews.
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A company spokesperson has been quoted by various publications, as saying: “We routinely review our workforce through this lens and at times rebalance accordingly.
“In the fourth quarter we are executing an action that will impact a low single-digit percentage of our global workforce.”
The spokesperson clarified that while some US-based staff may be affected by the layoffs, overall US employment figures are expected to remain consistent with last year’s numbers.
IBM’s move follows a period in which its software segment, supported by acquisitions including Red Hat and HashiCorp, has become more central to the company’s strategy.
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By GlobalDataIBM CEO Arvind Krishna has prioritised growth in this area, which now represents the company’s largest business unit.
This transition comes as the consulting division contends with slower demand due to ongoing economic concerns among clients, further influencing the decision for the workforce reduction.
Recently, IBM reported third-quarter 2025 (Q3 2025) revenue of $16.3bn, up 9% year over year from $14.9bn in the same period last year.
In a separate development, IBM announced that its Fusion platform has facilitated one of the first implementations of the Nvidia AI Data Platform reference design, integrating Nvidia RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition graphics processing units (GPUs), Nvidia Networking, and Nvidia AI Enterprise software.
UT Southwestern Medical Center is said to be the first to deploy this setup using IBM Fusion, enabling large-scale model training and inference on complex datasets and supporting advanced semantic query response times.
The Nvidia AI Data Platform reference design combines enterprise storage with accelerated computing to address demands from AI workloads.
IBM Fusion’s content-aware data services are integrated with Nvidia NeMo Retriever Microservices, allowing for continuous processing, indexing, and vectorisation of unstructured and semi-structured data.
