{"id":169982,"date":"2026-06-24T07:47:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T06:47:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/2026\/06\/24\/ibms-us10-billion-quantum-bet-building-the-machines-that-could-redefine-computing\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T07:47:28","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T06:47:28","slug":"ibms-us10-billion-quantum-bet-building-the-machines-that-could-redefine-computing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/2026\/06\/24\/ibms-us10-billion-quantum-bet-building-the-machines-that-could-redefine-computing\/","title":{"rendered":"IBM’s US$10 billion quantum bet: Building the machines that could redefine computing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A White House executive order bids to position the US as the world’s leading quantum power – the company that helped define the computer age is determined to help define whatever comes next.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

IBM – the company that helped create the modern computing industry is making its biggest wager yet – more than US$10 billion on quantum computing over the next five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company\u2019s goal is ambitious – nothing less than building the world’s first large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computers and securing leadership in what many believe will be the next era of computing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than US$10 billion in quantum computing will be invested by IBM over the next five years, funding everything from research and manufacturing to acquisitions and ecosystem partnerships. The investment is intended not only to accelerate IBM’s existing roadmap but also to cement both the company’s and America’s leadership in a technology that could ultimately reshape industries ranging from healthcare and finance to materials science and energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The quantum era is no longer ahead of us – it has started,” said IBM Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Building practical quantum computers has proven extraordinarily difficult – the answer lies in fault tolerance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A fault-tolerant quantum computer is capable of detecting and correcting errors in real time, enabling reliable computation even when individual qubits fail or become unstable. Achieving fault tolerance is widely regarded as the industry’s defining milestone – the moment when quantum computers evolve from experimental devices into genuinely useful computational systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IBM believes it can reach that milestone by 2029.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Starling Project<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the heart of IBM’s roadmap is IBM Quantum Starling, which the company describes as the world’s first large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to IBM, Starling will be capable of performing approximately 100 million quantum operations on 200 logical qubits and execute roughly 20,000 times more operations than today’s systems. Such performance would represent an enormous leap in capability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starling is intended to serve as the foundation for an even more ambitious successor: IBM Quantum Blue Jay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blue Jay is designed to perform one billion quantum operations across 2,000 qubits. At that scale, quantum systems may begin addressing scientific and industrial problems that are currently considered computationally intractable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IBM’s latest investment is designed not simply to deliver these systems but to accelerate innovation beyond them. The company says funding will support technologies extending past its current roadmap, including networked quantum computing and what could eventually become a quantum Internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While such concepts remain in their early stages, they illustrate the breadth of IBM’s ambitions. The company is not merely building individual quantum computers; it is laying the foundations for an entirely new computing infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Building the world’s largest quantum fleet<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

IBM enters this next phase from a position of considerable strength.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company already operates what it describes as the world’s largest fleet of quantum computers. More than 90 systems have been deployed globally through cloud-based access and dedicated installations, giving researchers and organisations the opportunity to experiment with quantum algorithms and applications today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those systems are spread across an increasingly international network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IBM quantum centres operate in New York and Germany, while dedicated systems are installed at institutions including the 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 and BasQ in Spain. Additional systems are planned for Chicago and India’s Amaravati Quantum Valley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This distributed infrastructure has given IBM an important advantage. Rather than waiting for future breakthroughs, organisations can already begin learning how to work with quantum technologies and develop expertise that may become strategically significant in coming years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than 340 organisations are currently participating in the IBM Quantum Network, spanning academia, government, healthcare, financial services and materials science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2017, IBM’s quantum programme has generated more than US$1.1 billion in contracts with clients exploring quantum applications and conducting real-world experiments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From theory to useful science<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most compelling argument for IBM’s investment may be that quantum computing is already beginning to produce scientifically meaningful results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recent projects suggest quantum systems are evolving into useful research tools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IBM has collaborated with the Cleveland Clinic and Japan’s RIKEN research institute to model a protein consisting of 12,635 atoms, work with potential implications for drug discovery and biomedical research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other collaborations with national laboratories and universities have focused on accurately simulating magnetic materials, while separate research has contributed to investigations of previously unobserved molecular structures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These projects remain early-stage scientific experiments rather than commercial products. Nevertheless, they indicate that quantum computers are progressing beyond proof-of-concept demonstrations toward practical applications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IBM now believes its partners could demonstrate genuine quantum advantage as early as 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quantum advantage refers to the point at which quantum computers perform tasks that classical computers cannot execute efficiently. Reaching that threshold would represent one of the most important milestones in computing history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The software advantage<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardware may capture headlines but software is equally important in determining whether quantum computing succeeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IBM has invested heavily in developing Qiskit, its open-source quantum software development kit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Qiskit has become the world’s most widely used quantum software stack and is utilised by nearly 70% of quantum developers. According to IBM, developers using Qiskit have already executed more than four trillion quantum circuits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The popularity of Qiskit matters because ecosystems often determine technological winners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

History offers plenty of examples. The success of personal computing was driven not merely by processors and hardware but by software platforms and developer communities. The same was true for smartphones and cloud computing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By encouraging widespread adoption of Qiskit, IBM is seeking to ensure that the future quantum ecosystem develops around tools and standards that it helped create.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strategy resembles IBM’s earlier role in enterprise computing, where the company often succeeded by building entire ecosystems rather than simply selling machines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manufacturing for the Quantum Age<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US$10 billion investment also reflects another reality: scaling quantum computing requires manufacturing capability as much as scientific discovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Producing advanced quantum processors involves specialised fabrication techniques, cryogenic systems operating near absolute zero and highly sophisticated supply chains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IBM recently announced plans to launch Anderon, described as the world’s first pure-play quantum wafer foundry. Supported by the US Department of Commerce, the initiative will receive a US$1 billion cash contribution from IBM alongside significant intellectual property, assets and expertise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The foundry underscores the growing recognition that quantum computing has strategic significance extending beyond commercial opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nations increasingly regard advanced computing technologies as matters of economic competitiveness and national security. Artificial intelligence, semiconductors and quantum technologies are all becoming arenas of geopolitical competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IBM’s investment is therefore as much about industrial capability as scientific ambition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quantum computing has endured periods of inflated expectations in the past and experts caution that practical commercial applications will emerge gradually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, the scale of IBM’s investment reflects growing confidence that the underlying science has advanced sufficiently to justify long-term commitment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Technology history is punctuated by inflection points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mainframe era transformed business computing. Personal computers democratised access to technology. The Internet connected the world, while cloud computing changed how digital infrastructure is delivered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IBM believes quantum computing represents the next such transition after decades of research and experimentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company that helped define the computer age is determined to help define whatever comes next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A White House executive order bids to position the US as the world’s leading quantum power – the company that helped define the computer age is determined to help define whatever comes next. IBM – the company that helped create the modern computing industry is making its biggest wager yet – more than US$10 billion […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":169983,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21942,6617,93],"tags":[76,26074,2959,26075,26076,26077,3295,26078,26079,25334,25818,20903,26080,25361,26081],"class_list":["post-169982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-quantum","category-research","category-top-stories","tag-digital-transformation","tag-fault-tolerant-quantum-computer","tag-ibm","tag-ibm-quantum-blue-jay","tag-ibm-quantum-starling","tag-qiskit","tag-quantum-computing","tag-quantum-ecosystem","tag-quantum-hardware","tag-quantum-investment","tag-quantum-manufacturing","tag-quantum-research","tag-quantum-software","tag-quantum-technology","tag-us-technology-leadership"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}