Biography: Winfried Wilcke

Winfried Wilcke is the Senior Manager for Nanoscale Science & Technology, and a Distinguished Research Staff Member at  IBM Research – Almaden. After earning a PhD in experimental nuclear physics in his native Germany, Winfried joined IBM Research in 1983, and has since lead numerous successful projects, including the research leading to the IBM SP series of very large supercomputers and IBM IceCube. During the nineties, he served as CTO of HAL Computer, which was instrumental in creating the 64-bit SPARC architecture.

His recent research is focused on cognitive computing and advanced energy storage, where he founded the IBM Battery 500 project. In the cognitive space, he initiated a new project on machine intelligence – going beyond traditional machine learning – with the goal of building machines that mimic certain aspects of human intelligence. Outside of the lab, Winfried enjoys flying his airplanes, sailing, writing and diving. He is the author of a collection of stories titled Random Walk.