IBM plans $2B quantum chip foundry; government will pay half

News
May 22, 20261 min

IBM hopes to build on its expertise to develop wafers for other vendors.

300mm quantum wafer
That's no moon.
Credit: IBM

The US government has awarded IBM $1 billion to help establish the first purpose-built quantum chip fabrication unit in the US. The Trump administration’s investment is being matched by IBM itself and will result in the establishment of a new company called Anderon. The new business will build its factory in Albany, New York.

IBM has pioneered quantum computing for decades. “Our work in silicon wafer fabrication has been a key to IBM’s success and will be critical to enable a broader quantum technology landscape,” said IBM CEO Arvind Krishna. “Anderon will be well-positioned to fuel America’s fast-growing quantum technology industry.”

Anderon will, with IBM’s help, develop quantum wafers for a number of hardware vendors.

The US government also invested in several other companies in the quantum area. GlobalFoundries, D-Wave Quantum and Rigetti Computing also benefited from the administration’s interest in the technology.

Maxwell Cooter

Maxwell began writing about technology in 1984, when mainframes ruled the world. Since then he has written for just about every business computing title in the UK, and for a few in the US, covering everything from Artificial intelligence to Zero-day exploits and all points in between. He has also been editor-in-chief of several award-winning titles, including Network Week, Techworld, and Cloud Pro, and a regular contributor to Whatsonstage.com. In his spare time he coaches a junior rugby team.

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