I don't think that top-tier research is necessarily equal to top pay. Otherwise universities would not stand any chance.

That said, I don't think IBM Watson has published much top-tier research.

University work tends to pay in different ways. Lots of opportunity for your own projects, cool toys, small teams that report directly to the owner.

Academia is not the same as industry, so total comp is not comparable. Tenure, more work freedom, social prestige are intangibles that would need to be factored into academic pay.

I worked at TJ Watson research center at the end of the 20th century but not in a research role or on ML.

It’s weird because IBM spends a lot on research (6 billion when I was there) but they are always trying to get marketable things out of said research. They still had chip fabs when I was there so they had people working on chemistry physics and math for chip things. They had chess playing machines (deep blue) and a backgammon one using ai.

They hired a lot of phds who were for the most part very self motivated. Very smart people. I’m not sure if they are still getting the best and brightest but for a lot the IBM letters are a draw.

I'd be very interested in other's opinions, but my observation is that high quality research != good products. There's a major disconnect between the labs and those building/selling the products.

Should have partnered with Google if you actually wanted something that works. IBM had its heyday, but the brain drain of talent and knowledge has already happened and it likely will never recover.

Is that also true of their quantum computing researchers? It does look like they put out some pretty decent research in that area.

The quality level of publications coming out from Google far surpasses IBM both in terms novelty and content in my opinion.

Why not look through the papers each company has released though and decide for yourself? https://ai.google/research/teams/applied-science/quantum-ai/ https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/category/quantcomp/