IBM announced on June 2 plans to invest more than $10 billion in quantum computing over the next five years. The company said the funding will support research and development, capital expenditure, manufacturing scaling, ecosystem partnerships, and mergers and acquisitions. IBM stated that these efforts are aimed at accelerating its roadmap toward delivering the world’s first large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer by 2029 and advancing quantum leadership anchored in the United States.
The company highlighted its current foundation in quantum technology, which includes operating the largest fleet of quantum computers globally, offering widely used software for quantum computing, and maintaining a network of more than 340 organizations using IBM systems for real workloads. “The quantum era is no longer ahead of us, it has started. Our clients, partners and users around the world are tapping into IBM quantum computers to do work that was impossible a few years ago,” said Arvind Krishna, Chairman & CEO of IBM. “The pace of discovery with quantum computers is accelerating rapidly, and this investment powers our ability to deliver the next generation of quantum hardware, software, and manufacturing.”
IBM operates over 90 quantum systems worldwide through cloud services and on-site deployments at locations including New York; Germany; Cleveland Clinic in Ohio; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York; PINQ in Quebec; The University of Tokyo and RIKEN in Japan; Yonsei University in South Korea; BasQ in Spain; with additional systems planned for Chicago and Amaravati Quantum Valley in India.
The company’s roadmap includes developing IBM Quantum Starling by 2029—a system expected to execute 20,000 times more operations than current machines—and laying groundwork for IBM Quantum Blue Jay with one billion operations across 2,000 qubits. Since 2017, contracts totaling more than $1.1 billion have been signed with clients from sectors such as financial services, healthcare, materials science, academia, and government.
With support from the United States Department of Commerce, IBM recently announced Anderon—the world’s first pure-play quantum wafer foundry—into which it will contribute $1 billion alongside intellectual property assets and workforce resources. The company expects partners using its technology to demonstrate ‘quantum advantage’ as early as 2026.
IBM also cited Qiskit as its leading software stack for algorithm research within this field—used by nearly seventy percent of developers working on such technologies today.
