IBM has announced plans to invest more than $10 billion in quantum computing over the next five years. The investment will cover research and development, capital expenditure, manufacturing scaling, ecosystem partnerships, and M&A activities. The funding is intended to advance IBM’s quantum roadmap to the world’s first large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer in 2029 and support U.S. leadership in the field.
The investment builds on IBM’s current quantum infrastructure, which includes the world’s largest fleet of quantum computers, the most widely used quantum software, and a network of more than 340 organizations running real workloads.
IBM currently operates over 90 quantum systems globally through cloud access and dedicated on-site deployments. These systems are located at IBM quantum centers in New York and Germany; Cleveland Clinic in Ohio; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York; PINQ in Quebec; 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.
IBM’s roadmap includes IBM Quantum Starling in 2029, planned as the world’s first large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer capable of executing 20,000 times more operations than today’s systems. This will be followed by IBM Quantum Blue Jay, designed to run one billion quantum operations across 2,000 qubits.
Since 2017, IBM has signed more than $1.1 billion in contracts related to quantum computing. Its IBM Quantum Network currently includes more than 340 members across financial services, healthcare, materials science, academia, and government.
IBM plans to launch Anderon, described as the world’s first pure-play quantum wafer foundry, with a $1 billion cash contribution along with intellectual property, assets, and workforce. The initiative has support from the United States Department of Commerce.
IBM stated that partners using its quantum computers are expected to demonstrate quantum advantage in 2026. Recent experiments include modeling a 12,635-atom protein with the Cleveland Clinic and RIKEN, simulating magnetic materials with national laboratories and universities, and research on a never-before-seen molecule with universities.
Qiskit, IBM’s quantum software stack, is used by nearly 70 percent of quantum developers and has executed over 4 trillion quantum circuits on quantum computers.
"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, 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."
