Details
- IBM and the U.S. Department of Commerce signed a Letter of Intent to create Anderon, a standalone, Albany-based company that will serve as the first U.S. pure-play quantum wafer foundry.
- The initiative will be funded by $1 billion in CHIPS Act incentives plus $1 billion in IBM cash, with IBM also contributing IP, assets, and staff and expecting additional outside investors over time.
- Anderon will operate a 300mm quantum wafer fab initially focused on superconducting qubit and supporting electronics wafers, with plans to expand to additional quantum modalities and provide wafers to multiple hardware vendors globally.
- The project is framed as a strategic move to secure U.S. quantum manufacturing capacity and national security, targeting a share of an estimated quantum industry value of up to $850 billion by 2040 and complementing IBM’s roadmap toward large-scale fault-tolerant quantum systems by 2029.
- IBM currently leads one of the largest deployed quantum fleets, with over 90 systems and more than 325 ecosystem partners, and the foundry plan aligns with broader forecasts that practical quantum advantage could emerge around 2026, driving demand for scalable quantum hardware.
Impact
This move signals a shift in quantum from lab-scale prototypes to industrial-scale manufacturing, anchoring a domestic supply chain for quantum wafers as global competition accelerates. By separating fabrication into a dedicated foundry, IBM and the U.S. government are effectively betting that vendor-agnostic quantum manufacturing will become a strategic infrastructure layer over the next 12–24 months, influencing where investors, defense agencies, and hyperscalers place their long-term quantum hardware bets.
