IBM to open the fifth technology centre in Portugal

  • ECO News
  • 11 February 2022

IBM is already working on opening a fifth Technology Innovation Centre in Portugal, adding to those in Tomar, Viseu, Fundão and Portalegre.

The decision has been made. IBM is going to open another Technological Innovation Centre in Portugal. The process is under study and the location has not yet been chosen. But, as with the four other centres it has in the country, synergies with higher education will be an important factor in the company’s choice.

The new president of IBM Portugal revealed this information to ECO: “We are thinking of expanding one more,” said Ricardo Martinho, who assumed the leadership of the multinational in the Portuguese market at the end of last year. “We have our sights set on that.”

IBM’s plan will depend on the conjuncture, as the president of the company explained. “We want to let the pandemic pass, which is a tough moment where the economy is also a bit off-centre from what its focus is.”

It was in 2013 that the company set up its first centre of this type in Tomar in the country, taking advantage of synergies with the municipality’s Polytechnic Institute. Over eight years later, the Tomar centre has “around 200 people” working, according to company figures. In Viseu, where IBM set up a Technology Innovation Centre in 2016, 120 jobs were created.

Fundão in 2019, and Portalegre in 2020 were the two other locations chosen for the IBM centres. These were joined by the Shared Services Centre in Braga, whose modus operandi is distinct from the other four.

“It’s not only Lisbon or Porto that have good universities. We have a relationship here with another type of people and another type of training that enriches the teams. Then, we want to be a catalyst of how the world works in a better way, and that is also helping the country, so that it has centres and a more dynamic economy in less central areas,” explained Ricardo Martinho, when questioned about the impact of this decentralization for the company.