Anderon (IBM) locks in $1 billion CHIPS award

Anderon, IBM's quantum wafer foundry subsidiary in Albany, New York, finalized a $1 billion CHIPS and Science Act award with Commerce, converting May's letter of intent into a signed agreement. IBM is matching it with another $1 billion of its own cash plus IP, assets, and workforce. The 300mm foundry is already running production wafers, superconducting qubit arrays, quantum I/O signaling, cryogenic readout components. This is the largest of the nine CHIPS letters of intent signed in May, out of a $2.01 billion total federal program. D-Wave, PsiQuantum, Quantinuum, and Rigetti already finalized their $100 million pieces . Atom Computing and Infleqtion, two of our core seven, are still working to finalize their own $100 million allocations. Diraq's up to $38 million is also still pending.

This is IBM betting its own balance sheet, not just taking government money, on being the domestic supplier every other quantum hardware company depends on.

Two of the seven companies, Atom Computing and Infleqtion, still haven't closed their much smaller $100 million awards months after the same letters of intent. It's worth asking why IBM's $2 billion closed fastest. Government-backed foundry customers are also government-backed foundry competitors' suppliers, worth watching whether Anderon's "open commercial pure-play foundry" pitch to the whole industry creates real conflicts once a Rigetti or Quantinuum wafer order competes for capacity against IBM's own.

IBM. (2026, September 16). Anderon, an IBM company, finalizes agreement with the U.S. Department of Commerce for a $1 billion CHIPS award to accelerate R&D for U.S.-based pure-play quantum foundry. IBM Newsroom. IBM — Anderon $1 billion final award