Research Internship in AI & Data Science (South Africa)

About the role

IBM Research Africa invites outstanding MSc or PhD candidates to join a 6‑to‑12‑month research internship at its South African lab. Interns will work on cutting‑edge projects that address grand challenges in AI, data science, quantum computing and more, gaining hands‑on experience with IBM’s advanced technologies.

Key responsibilities

• Develop and deploy proof‑of‑concept technologies and algorithms for assigned research projects.
• Define research questions, formulate hypotheses, and create innovative solutions using machine‑learning and data‑driven methods.
• Collaborate extensively with internal IBM teams and external domain experts on projects such as unsupervised cloud ML, traffic optimisation, genomics, NLP in medicine, and radio astronomy analytics.

Required profile

• South African citizen and member of designated groups as defined by the Employment Equity Act.
• Enrolled in a recognised university program (MSc, MEng or PhD) in fields such as Computer Science, Data Science, Electrical/Electronic Engineering, Computational Biology, Physics, Statistics, etc.
• Strong programming experience in languages like C++, Python, Java, JavaScript, MATLAB or R.
• Demonstrated academic research ability and working knowledge of current machine‑learning methods.

Required skills

• Proficiency in C++, Python, Java, JavaScript, MATLAB, R.
• Experience with machine‑learning and deep‑learning techniques.
• Application programming for mobile/web platforms, including development of web APIs and UI/UX design.
• Knowledge of cloud computing, data‑driven analytics, and signal/image processing (advantageous).