Topic
46 facts from 5 episodes, in date order. These are what speakers said on the shows, each linked to the moment it was said. They aren't independently verified.
1700s-1900s
Arvind Krishna says capital-versus-labor shifts occurred in the 1700s, 1800s and 1900s, and that nations favoring capital tended to win.
“It happened in the seventeen hundreds, it happened again in the eighteen hundreds, it happened again in the nineteen hundreds.”
1990s
Krishna says an early-1990s experience pitching commercial wireless networks to IBM's business side taught him he needed to learn markets and distribution.
“four or five years into IBM, I was looking at a building. This was in the early nineties, wireless networks”
2000
Arvind Krishna says many investors in fiber-optic networks built around 2000 did not earn a return.
“if I look at fiber optics in the ground back in the year 2,000, not all of those people got a return.”
2010-2022
Arvind Krishna defines the deep learning era as roughly 2010 through 2022, a period of major AI progress.
“So in the deep learning era, let's call that 2010 through 2022, that twelve years. Deep learning made incredible progress, no question about it.”
2017
Arvind Krishna dates the foundational transformer-based approach behind LLMs to a 2017 paper.
“this stuff is eight years old at this point. That's the first paper I think was 2017 when intention and this approach came to be.”
2017
Arvind Krishna says he formed his hybrid cloud thesis for IBM in 2017.
“So I made the hybrid observation deeply in 2017. As I was making that, I said, Okay, how do I test this?”
2019
Krishna says he was convinced in 2019 that AI would be big, about three years before the wider world noticed.
“back in 2019, I was convinced that A I would be big. It took another three years for the world to wake up to that.”
2020
Arvind Krishna became CEO of IBM in 2020 after almost thirty years at the company.
“you took over as CEO in 2020, you'd been at the company for almost thirty years when that happened.”
2025
Arvind Krishna estimates that filling a one-gigawatt AI data center costs about $80 billion at today's prices.
“It takes about $80 billion to full to fill up a one gigawatt data center. Okay, that's today's number.”
2025
Arvind Krishna estimates global AGI-chasing commitments at about 100 gigawatts, implying roughly $8 trillion of capital spending.
“the total commits in the world on this space of the chasing AGI seem to you like a hundred gigawatts. At these announcements, that's 8 trillion of capex.”
2025
Arvind Krishna predicts up to 10% of total US employment could be displaced by AI over the next couple of years.
“Could there be up to 10% job displacement? I'll use that phrase. I actually believe that's going to be likely over the next couple of years.”
2026
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said GPU pricing per hour had doubled over the previous six months.
“Underlying GPU pricing, which is what all of these things run on, has doubled in the last six months on a per hour basis.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna describes Moore's law as a doubling of what chips can do every two years.
“That was the beginning of Moore's law, really, right? Every two years you get a two x advantage in what you can do.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna argues that 10x gains in chips, chip design and software could combine for AI compute that is 1,000 times cheaper.
“So there's a ten x from the software side. You put those three tens together, that's a thousand times cheaper.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna says about 60% of total technology spend is outside the United States, and regulated US industries tend toward hybrid cloud.
“About 60% of the total spend is outside the US. Even inside the US, anyone in a regulated industry is going to be hybrid in some sense.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna says IBM has never misused client data in its 114 years.
“we tend to have the trust with those people that we have never, in 114 years, misused that data, not even once.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna says IBM's open-source quantum software has about 650,000 users worldwide.
“The fact that there's 650,000 people globally who use it, hey, it tells me that there is excitement and there is a movement”
Undated
Arvind Krishna says about 300 clients work with IBM on quantum computing in a research rather than commercial mode.
“We have 300 clients, not commercial. There are 300 people working with us in a, let's call it, research mode.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna gives roughly 20-30% odds that IBM's quantum computing reaches something remarkable in three to three-and-a-half years.
“Will we get to something remarkable in three, maybe three and a half years? I'm gonna give it low odds. It's possible, but it's maybe twenty, 30%.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna puts the odds that current known technologies reach artificial general intelligence at zero to 1%.
“I am not convinced, or rather, I give it really low odds, like we're talking zero to 1%, that the current set of known technologies gets us to AGI.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna says an IBM team of 6,000 using an in-house coding tool became 45% more productive within four months.
“Within four months, the team who embraced it, which is 6,000 people, so not a tiny number, was 45% more productive just to compare”
Undated
Arvind Krishna says hybrid cloud and AI software make up almost half of IBM's total revenue.
“IBM is largely a hybrid cloud and A I software company. We have made the transition to that's almost half our total revenue.”
Undated
Krishna estimates that populating one gigawatt of AI data-center capacity costs 60 to 80 billion dollars of semiconductors.
“about a gigawatt of power, you can debate, but it costs you sixty to $80 billion worth of semiconductors to go populate it.”
Undated
Krishna says commitments of over 100 gigawatts of AI data centers imply 6 to 8 trillion dollars of spending.
“people have committed over a hundred uh gigawatts of uh a I data center build-out, that points to six to 8 trillion worth of a build-out.”
Undated
Krishna cites a figure that about 30% of truck miles and containers are empty, as an optimization problem quantum computing might address.
“30% of all truck miles and containers are empty as opposed to use.”
Undated
Krishna spent his first ten years at IBM as a researcher before moving into business management roles including databases and semiconductors.
“I spent my first ten years. I'll use probably a more extreme. I was an introverted researcher for ten years.”
Undated
Interviewer Nicolai Tangen states that Krishna's father was a major general in the Indian Army.
“Your father was a major general in the Indian Army.”
Undated
Krishna says announced plans for 125 gigawatts of AI data centers imply $8 to 12 trillion of total capital spending.
“If I take all the verbal promises, and if we say there's 125 gigawatts of AI data centers that are going to come online in the next two to three years, that's the eight to 12 trillion of capex in total”
Undated
Krishna says nation states have long carried out such cyberattacks, but only three or four were capable, and AI may widen that to a couple of dozen.
“So nation states have been doing this for decades, but you would say three or four nation states were capable of doing it.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna said IBM's Watson winning Jeopardy woke the world up to AI's capabilities.
“when we uh won Jeopardy with Watson, I think it woke the world up because I think for the first time in a long time, AI started doing something people thought it could not do.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna said about 30% of headcount in operations functions like compliance, accounts payable and procurement may not be needed within a few years.
“I would not be surprised if about 30% of the total headcount in those areas is not needed within a few years.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna said 125 gigawatts of announced AI data centers would imply eight to twelve trillion dollars of total capital spending.
“there's 125 gigawatts of AI data centers that are going to come online in the next two to three years, that's the eight to 12 trillion of capex in total”
Undated
Arvind Krishna said the planned AI data center spending would require roughly $1 trillion in profit, and in the best case about $4 trillion in additional revenue.
“because that would imply close to $1 1 trillion of profit, which is, in the best case, that means 4 trillion of more revenue.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna said only three or four nation states were historically capable of large-scale cyberattacks, a number he expects to grow to a couple of dozen.
“So nation states have been doing this for decades, but you would say three or four nation states were capable of doing it.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna said IBM is on about its fourth attempt at building a digital sales channel during his tenure.
“We're probably on our fourth try in my tenure, but we're not gonna give up it.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna said corporate AI performance follows roughly a 20/80 power law, with about 20% of companies getting returns and 80% not.
“If you look at corporate uh performance, actually, it tends to be a twenty-eighty rule, more of a power law than the K is really more of a fifty-fifty.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna warns that a stolen encrypted hard disk could be stored and decrypted years later once quantum computers can break today's cryptography.
“if you have an encrypted hard disk today, that gets stolen, somebody could keep it for five years and break it at that point.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna says post-quantum cryptography already exists and its code is written, but adoption has lagged.
“post quantum cryptography is understood, it's well known, the code is written. But people have been too lazy to get to it.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna says current quantum computers perform around 10,000 gate operations, which he calls small compared with a conventional computer.
“Today, most people are somewhere around 10,000. Which, if you think of a normal computer, is not very much.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna gives an example of a quantum machine with 10,000 physical qubits yielding about 200 logical, error-corrected qubits.
“It's actually the whole machine is error corrected, but it's got some divide. So 10,000 physical, maybe 200 logical.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna argues, citing Richard Feynman's work, that quantum algorithms cannot run efficiently on classical hardware such as GPUs.
“You cannot simulate something on a different architecture and expect a more efficient result.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna says running a Chinese open-weight model on one's own GPUs could cut costs to about $1-2 per million tokens.
“we could drop the cost to about a dollar to $2 for a million tokens.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna says open-weight models trail the frontier by six to twelve months at most.
“The gap in these things is six to twelve months at the most.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna says agents now write roughly half the code at his company and that it is better than previous code.
“We use, uh, agents and coding agents now for probably half the code that is written inside our place, and it is superior to what was being written before.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna says the IBM mainframe has lasted sixty-five years because it was vertically integrated.
“The IBM mainframe has lasted sixty five years. Why? It was vertically integrated.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna says the average enterprise uses 500 to 5,000 distinct software vendors and may consolidate to five to ten main platforms.
“The average enterprise uses anywhere from 500 to 5,000 distinct software vendors.”
Episodes