Claude Code New Mission Saving the Global Financial System from Aging COBOL.
Anthropic has unveiled a groundbreaking capability for Claude Code, its specialized developer tool, aimed at solving one of the most persistent headaches in modern computing: the migration of legacy COBOL systems. While COBOL is decades old, it remains the backbone of global infrastructure, powering 95% of ATM transactions in the U.S. and managing critical systems for banks, airlines, and government agencies.
Bridging the Talent Gap with AI
The primary obstacle in modernizing COBOL systems is the dwindling number of experts who understand the language. Anthropic claims that Claude Code can automate the most complex stage of migration reverse engineering. The AI can analyze intricate codebases, map out entire business workflows, and identify potential risks that developers must address before a full transition to modern languages.
The Market Reaction: IBM Takes a Hit
The announcement sent ripples through the stock market, causing IBM shares to tumble by 13%. As the long-standing leader in mainframe technology, IBM has been developing its own Generative AI tools to convert COBOL to Java. Anthropic’s aggressive entry into this space is seen as a direct challenge to IBM’s dominance in the multi-billion dollar legacy modernization market.
Analysts estimate that there are more than 800 billion lines of COBOL code still in use today, and the value of transactions running on this language amounts to $3 trillion per day. Claude Code's ability to accurately "reverse engineer" this code is not just a software upgrade, but a way to maintain the stability of the global economy.
While IBM focused on converting to Java, the challenge lies in the fact that modern systems often operate on microservices, while COBOL is a monolithic structure. Further information indicates that Claude Code aims to provide a workflow that allows executives to see the "logical structure" before deciding how to segment the system, rather than simply translating the language word-for-word.
Most COBOL engineers are over 60 years old and are gradually retiring. Relying on human labor is therefore a national security risk for the United States. Using AI like Claude Code is thus seen as the only timely solution.
The advantage of COBOL is its speed in processing massive amounts of data (batch processing), which newer languages like Java or Python may be slower on older hardware. Anthropic's tools must therefore prove that the resulting system will maintain the performance required by banks.
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Source: Anthropic
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