- IBM is contributing a matching $1 billion in cash to the venture
- The first quantum wafers are already running through the Albany facility
- Commerce takes a minority, non-controlling equity stake as a condition of the funding
Anderon has finalized a $1 billion CHIPS and Science Act award with the Department of Commerce, converting a letter of intent, or LOI, announced in May into a definitive agreement, IBM said Wednesday.
The IBM subsidiary operates a 300-millimeter pure-play quantum wafer foundry in Albany, New York, and the award funds research and development to expand domestic quantum wafer manufacturing.
IBM is contributing a matching $1 billion in cash along with intellectual property, assets and workforce. The company said the first quantum wafers are already running through Anderon’s facility.
What Will Anderon Manufacture?
The foundry produces wafers supporting superconducting qubit arrays, quantum input and output signaling, and readout signal chain components. Anderon plans to extend into other quantum modalities.
Its 300-millimeter processes cover superconducting wiring, through-silicon vias and bumps, and are backed by process design kits, in-line wafer testing and baseline production routes.
Mukesh Khare, CEO of Anderon, said the agreement strengthens the company’s ability to deliver manufacturing scale to the quantum industry. Jay Gambetta, director of IBM Research, said wafer fabrication capacity is what IBM’s quantum road map requires.
Khare serves as general manager of IBM’s semiconductors division.
Where Does Anderon Fit in the Commerce Quantum Portfolio?
The Anderon award is the largest of nine LOI Commerce signed in May, totaling $2.01 billion under the CHIPS and Science Act.
GlobalFoundries and Commerce finalized a $375 million LOI for a domestic quantum foundry covering superconducting, trapped-ion, photonic, topological and silicon-spin architectures.
The remaining funds were split among seven quantum computing companies. D-Wave, PsiQuantum, Quantinuum and Rigetti finalized their contracts for $100 million each. Atom Computing and Infleqtion are still working to finalize their proposed $100 million allocations, while Diraq’s targeted funding of up to $38 million also remains in the planning phase.
Commerce takes a minority, non-controlling equity stake in each company as a condition of the funding.
What Is a Pure-Play Quantum Foundry?
Anderon is structured to fabricate wafers for quantum hardware vendors other than IBM.
IBM said it has deployed more than 90 quantum systems and works with more than 325 Fortune 500 companies, startups, universities and government agencies. The company is targeting a large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer for private sector customers by 2029.
