Commerce Signs Its $1 Billion CHIPS R&D Award With IBM's Anderon. The Government's Release Runs to Two Sentences, and Neither Mentions the Equity Stake Promised in May

by Karl Lindström · September 25, 2026

Semiconductors & Hardware Reporter, Frontier Tech Wire

The U.S. Department of Commerce has turned the largest of its nine May quantum letters of intent into a signed agreement. In a release dated Sept. 16, 2026, the Department announced "the signing of a final R&D award of up to $1 billion to Anderon, a newly formed subsidiary of IBM, under the CHIPS and Science Act," money it says will go toward "accelerating Anderon's efforts to establish a new quantum semiconductor foundry." That is, in full, the substance of the government's announcement: the release published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which houses the CHIPS Research and Development Office, is two sentences long.

IBM's own release, issued through PR Newswire the same day under an Albany, N.Y. dateline, fills in the corporate picture but not the contractual one. It describes Anderon LLC as "an IBM (NYSE: IBM) company" that "operates a state-of-the-art 300-millimeter pure-play quantum wafer foundry, backed by an additional $1 billion investment from IBM," and says the company "has already achieved a significant operational milestone, with the first quantum wafers now running through its manufacturing facility." It gives no wafer volumes, no customer names, no headcount and no timetable.

The award is the sixth of the nine May letters of intent to reach a signed agreement, and by far the largest. NIST's CHIPS news page lists finalisations with GlobalFoundries (up to $375 million), Quantinuum, D-Wave, PsiQuantum and Rigetti (up to $100 million each) all dated Sept. 8, 2026, eight days before Anderon's. On the May figures, that takes $1.775 billion of the $2.013 billion NIST said it intended to commit to quantum companies from letters of intent to signed awards, leaving Atom Computing, Infleqtion and Diraq still at the letter stage as far as NIST's public listing shows.

The government's word for the amount deserves attention. The NIST release of Sept. 16 says "up to $1 billion." The May 21 release said IBM "will receive $1 billion in planned funding," without the qualifier. IBM's Sept. 16 release calls it "the finalization of a $1 billion award." An "up to" figure is a ceiling rather than a commitment, and none of the three documents sets out whether the money is released against milestones, how many tranches there are, or what Anderon must demonstrate to draw the full amount.

What the May documents did set out was the shape of the deal. NIST said the Department was "proposing to provide incentives for two quantum foundries (GlobalFoundries and IBM) to help establish and accelerate foundational domestic manufacturing capacity for the quantum sector," with IBM's $1 billion intended "to establish a new quantum foundry subsidiary for quantum-grade superconducting wafers." IBM's May 21 release said: "In addition to the $1 billion in CHIPS incentives provided by the DoC, IBM will contribute $1 billion of cash into Anderon, along with IBM investing significant intellectual property, assets, and a skilled workforce, with additional investors expected as Anderon grows."

That final clause, "additional investors expected," is where the unanswered question sits. The May NIST release followed its list of nine recipients with a single sentence of conditions: "The Department will receive a minority, non-controlling equity stake in each company as a condition for receiving the funds to enhance the return for the U.S. taxpayer." For the seven quantum computing companies on the list, and for GlobalFoundries, the recipient is the operating company itself and a stake has an obvious home. For Anderon, a subsidiary IBM describes as "a new standalone IBM company," it is not public whether the Department's stake sits in Anderon LLC, in IBM, or is structured some other way. Neither Sept. 16 release uses the word "equity." IBM has not filed a Form 8-K about the award, and the agreement itself has not been published.

The technical scope is described in similar terms in May and September. Anderon, according to IBM's Sept. 16 release, "offers specialized wafers supporting high-performance superconducting qubit arrays, quantum input/output signaling, and readout signal chain components," and "plans to expand to other quantum modalities in the future." In May IBM said the foundry's "forthcoming leading-edge 300mm wafer processes expect to offer the most advanced quantum wafer technologies, including superconducting wiring, through-silicon vias and bumps," supported by "dedicated process design kits, in-line wafer testing and characterization." The September release adds that the company will serve "customers across the ecosystem" but names none.

For context, IBM's quantum business is the largest in the sector by installed base on the company's own account. Its May release said IBM "has deployed over 90 quantum systems" and has an ecosystem of "more than 325 Fortune 500 companies, startups, universities, and government agencies" using its fleet, and restated a goal "to deliver the world's first large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer by 2029 for commercial clients." The Anderon foundry is the manufacturing leg of that plan: Jay Gambetta, whom the Sept. 16 release identifies as Director, IBM Research & IBM Fellow, said "IBM's quantum roadmap requires a manufacturing foundation that can scale at the pace our work demands," and that "Anderon's focus on wafer fabrication gives us exactly that and strengthens our ability to execute and accelerate progress toward the next era of quantum computing."

The pure-play framing matters for the rest of the listed quantum group. A foundry that fabricates superconducting wafers for outside customers competes, at least in principle, for the same work GlobalFoundries is being funded to do under its own $375 million award, which NIST described in May as covering "multiple modalities (superconducting, trapped ion, photonic, topological, and silicon spin)." Whether any of the smaller superconducting-qubit companies, Rigetti among them, will move wafer work to an IBM-owned foundry is a commercial question none of the parties has addressed.

Mukesh Khare, identified in the release as CEO of Anderon, said: "This agreement with the Department of Commerce strengthens our ability to deliver the manufacturing scale the quantum industry needs. We're building a foundation that will let quantum move from research breakthroughs to real-world impact." The release does not say when Anderon was incorporated, who sits on its board, or whether IBM's $1 billion has been contributed in full or will be paid in over time.

There is also a gap between the language of the two September documents on the state of the foundry. IBM's release says Anderon "operates" a 300mm foundry with wafers already running. The government's release says the award will accelerate "Anderon's efforts to establish a new quantum semiconductor foundry." Both can be true if Anderon is running early lots on IBM's existing Albany infrastructure while a purpose-built capacity is stood up; IBM's boilerplate refers to "billions in prior site investment." But the releases do not say which, and the difference between a foundry that exists and one being established is the difference between a facility and a plan.

The Quantum Insider's Sept. 16 write-up, which relies on the IBM release, adds no figures on disbursement, timelines, customers or headcount, and this publication found none elsewhere.

What comes next is largely undisclosed. The May LOI said the launch of Anderon was "subject to the negotiation and execution of definitive documents," and that condition has now been met. What has not been published is the award agreement itself, any milestone schedule, the terms on which the Department holds its stake, or a date by which Anderon expects to ship production wafers to a customer other than IBM. Three of the nine May letters of intent remain unsigned on NIST's public listing, and the Department has not said when it expects to close them.