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Here in Melbourne, Australia, I believe that IBM research is trying to madly hire science / mathematics PhDs. Here's a press release from 2011 [1]:

  > Each year, IBM invests an average of US$6 billion
  > globally into research and development. The new R&D
  > laboratory is the first lab of its kind to focus on
  > research and development. It is located on campus at
  > the University of Melbourne and will employ 150
  > researchers within the next five years.
Why here? It may be the case that Australia's R&D tax incentive plays part of this [2]. Or perhaps it could be that Australia produces a decent crop of well-educated researchers, while much of the economy is based around extracting natural resources and selling them, so there isn't too much competition for employees. [3]

[1] http://www.austrade.gov.au/invest/doing-business-in-australi...

[2] https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/Research-and-development-tax...

[3] i may be completely wrong about this.

Australia seems like a place that pumps out a lot of researchers but doesn't have the global service export economy to build off of, like other nations sometimes do. Props to IBM for taking advantage of it.
This is pretty much it. Our universities are generally fairly first-rate on a world scale, but we don't have the same information economy that other nations have. You see it often in our medical research where we punch far above our weight. It's good that IBM is exploring the comptuer science and maths side of this.
It's an investment for the future since the mining boom is declining. Also research universities down under do have their niches on global scale (eg. medical research).
IBM seems to be leading in patent awards this year as well: http://qz.com/418068/ibm-has-been-awarded-an-average-of-21-p...

Also note that not all patents come from their Research division; anyone can file for one.