What is COBOL, high-level programming language behind IBM's 'biggest' stock value fall

2026-02-27 - 14:43

AI startup Anthropic's claim of automating COBOL modernization sent IBM's stock plummeting, wiping billions off its market value. The decades-old language, still powering critical systems, faces a modernization challenge. Anthropic's tool promises to drastically reduce the time and cost of translating COBOL to modern languages, threatening IBM's mainframe business model.