International Business Machines

International Business Machines said its subsidiary Anderon won a US$1b federal award to build a U.S. quantum chip foundry, alongside a further US$1b IBM commitment to the project. The planned facility is described as the first stand-alone quantum wafer foundry in the U.S., focused on quantum chip manufacturing under CHIPS Act funding. IBM also announced a partnership with regulatory intelligence provider CUBE to integrate real time global AI rule monitoring into watsonx.governance. The Anderon quantum foundry award and CUBE tie up together represent a US$2b quantum and governance push by the company.

Dun & Bradstreet announced that the D&B Commercial Graph is now available in the IBM watsonx Orchestrate Agent Catalog through a Model Context Protocol server. The integration connects AI agents to verified business identity, relationships, and commercial context, anchored by the D-U-N-S Number business identifier, so agents recognize the same business across systems, workflows, and domains. Elizabeth Barrette, General Manager for Master Data Management Solutions at Dun & Bradstreet, said the company's recent AI Momentum survey found just 6% of businesses say their enterprise data is fully ready to support AI at scale. Megan Grant, Managing Director at IBM Technology, U.S. Industry Market, said the arrangement lets organizations bring trusted data and business context into the AI workflows they build and deploy. The D&B Commercial Graph MCP Server is available through the IBM watsonx Orchestrate Agent Catalog, supporting workflows across sales, marketing, procurement, compliance, finance, credit evaluation, and master data management.

Anderon, an IBM subsidiary, finalized a $1 billion research-and-development award from the U.S. Department of Commerce on Wednesday under the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act. The funding will support Anderon's efforts to advance quantum wafer manufacturing at its facility in Albany, New York, where a 300-millimeter quantum wafer foundry serves customers across the quantum industry. IBM has put up $1 billion of its own money alongside the federal award, and production is underway with quantum wafers already in process. The Anderon award is part of a broader $2 billion package distributed across nine quantum computing companies under the CHIPS and Science Act, with GlobalFoundries in line for $375 million and D-Wave Quantum, Rigetti Computing, and Infleqtion each expected to receive $100 million; each of the nine firms will give the federal government a minority ownership stake in exchange for the funding. The finalization follows a letter of intent between IBM and the Commerce Department announced in May, and last week Rigetti Computing, D-Wave Quantum, and Quantinuum each finalized $100 million deals with the department. IBM stock fell 3.3% on Wednesday and has declined nearly 19% this year.

CUBE, the AI-native regulatory intelligence company, announced a collaboration with IBM to add a new Regulatory Horizon Scanning capability within IBM watsonx.governance. The integration embeds CUBE's global regulatory intelligence directly into watsonx.governance, giving enterprises continuous visibility into regulatory developments affecting their AI systems worldwide. The capability continuously monitors AI-related regulatory developments from authoritative sources, automatically capturing updates from regulators, legislative bodies, standards organisations and industry associations, and making them available within existing AI governance workflows. The collaboration follows partnerships CUBE announced earlier this year with Microsoft and ServiceNow, and comes as requirements emerge across jurisdictions ranging from the EU's AI Act to the NIST AI Risk Management Framework. Ben Richmond, Founder and CEO of CUBE, said regulatory intelligence is becoming a foundational layer of how AI itself is governed, while Maryam Ashoori, VP of watsonx.governance Product and Engineering at IBM, said CUBE brings a depth of regulatory expertise and global reach few providers can match.

IBM expanded its relationship with Turkey's Kredi Kayıt Bürosu on Monday, pushing watsonx and IBM infrastructure deeper into a financial platform operating at enormous scale. KKB plans to deploy IBM data, mainframe and watsonx technologies as it modernizes infrastructure capable of handling more than 8.5 billion transactions annually, a workload that works out to roughly 23.3 million transactions every day. The project spans software-development acceleration, system monitoring, database management and API integration, putting IBM technology directly into a mission-critical financial workload. IBM did not disclose the contract value or a deployment timetable, while second-quarter company revenue increased just 1% to $17.2 billion. IBM shares slipped approximately 0.4% to $248.07 Tuesday morning, a price only 2.23% above the $242.67 GF Value estimate.

Four major infrastructure vendors have now shipped standalone agent governance products at general availability, a rush that has itself become the signal that agent governance is decoupling from individual platforms to become a category of its own. Okta pushed furthest into new territory with its July 2026 product innovations, shipping Agent-to-Agent Connections at general availability to enable secure multi-agent workflows through temporary runtime tokens that enforce which agents may invoke which others, alongside the Agent Gateway, available as a research release, which sits between agents and the systems they access without requiring code changes. IBM's Think 2026 announcement positioned next-generation watsonx Orchestrate as an agentic control plane, introduced in June on AWS and IBM Cloud, offering runtime policy management, credential health monitoring, and an Agent Access overview across an organization's entire agent estate. Broadcom embedded governance directly into the compute fabric with AgentMinder, unveiled at VMware Explore on August 31 and shipping at general availability bundled into the VMware Private AI Cloud, treating agents as enterprise-grade identities bound to a declared mission, permitted intents, approved tools, and authorized resources. Dataiku made a different architectural bet, with Dataiku Agent Management scanning agents across nine platforms including Microsoft Copilot Studio, Salesforce Agentforce, AWS Bedrock, and Google Vertex to provide a cross-platform control tower for discovery, certification, and audit-readiness. The urgency tracks to two numbers: Menlo Ventures found that 76 percent of AI applications are purchased rather than built internally, and the Cloud Security Alliance reported in February that 84 percent of organizations doubt they could pass a compliance audit focused on agent behavior or access controls.

BlueQubit announced the open call for its Quantum Flywheel grant program, a $150,000 initiative created with support from IBM, Amazon Web Services, and NVIDIA accelerated computing. The three-month program provides research teams with cloud compute credits for QPU, CPU, and GPU resources, along with access to frontier AI models and BlueQubit's quantum-native development environment. Proposals are invited across three areas: developing and testing novel quantum algorithms on IBM quantum computers targeting quantum advantage in simulation and optimization, conducting adversarial classical simulation with tensor networks and Pauli-path methods to stress-test published quantum advantage claims, and using frontier AI agents to discover, decode, and evaluate novel quantum error-correction codes aimed at mitigating hardware noise. Selected teams will receive direct access to high-performance classical supercomputing, including NVIDIA GPU instances on AWS and large core CPU machines via BlueQubit's simulation platform, with end-to-end support from code generation to QPU execution on IBM quantum computers. The open call runs for a five-week submission window, and selected researchers will receive three months of continuous hardware and compute access.

IBM launched an open-source Lunar Foundation Model with NASA, sending its shares up about 2% to $238.62 on Friday. The model was built from more than 30 data layers gathered by nine instruments across four NASA missions, and it can flag potential ice deposits, chart craters for safer landings and examine volcanic terrain. Benchmark testing showed accuracy gains of as much as 23% over commonly used techniques, giving IBM a powerful showcase for applying AI to complex scientific data. Open sourcing the lunar model will not generate meaningful licensing revenue by itself; the bigger prize is proving IBM can turn enormous datasets into specialized AI systems and then sell the computing infrastructure, software and consulting expertise needed to deploy them on Earth. IBM trades 1.64% below its GF Value estimate of $242.59, suggesting modest upside rather than a deep discount.

Atsuyoshi Koike, chairman and CEO of Japanese chipmaker Rapidus Corp, said on Thursday, September 10, that he is seriously considering building a semiconductor manufacturing plant on the Moon by 2040, citing the Moon's water resources as necessary for chip production. Speaking at a forum in Washington hosted by the Hudson Institute, Koike confirmed this is no joke and that he is thinking of a timeframe around 2040, and he showed attendees an AI-generated video depicting a simulated manufacturing plant on the lunar surface. Meanwhile, Arvind Krishna, CEO of IBM Corp, who also attended the event, said IBM is providing technical support to Rapidus as the Japanese company prepares to mass-produce 2-nanometer semiconductors at its plant in Hokkaido, and the two companies are also jointly researching and developing even more advanced 1-nanometer semiconductors.

IBM and NASA announced the open-source release of the NASA-IBM Lunar Foundation Model, one of the first publicly available foundation models for scientific exploration of the Moon. The model exceeds widely used methods by up to 23% in identifying key geographic features on the Moon's surface, including potential ice deposits, craters and volcanic formations. A NASA-IBM authored technical paper shows the model reduced error in identifying areas with high potential for lunar ice by up to 22% compared to the SwinV2-B (ImageNet) model, and at context-scale resolution of roughly 100 meters it outperforms SwinV2-B by nearly 19% using just half the training data. Alongside the model, IBM and NASA scientists built the first open-source lunar dataset of its kind, aggregating over 30 spatially-aligned layers from nine instruments across four missions, including data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and GRAIL mission and complementary data from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's SELENE/Kaguya. The release extends the IBM and NASA collaboration and joins the Prithvi family of open foundation models spanning geospatial, weather, heliophysics and now the Moon.

IBM and Lockheed Martin, through an offset agreement with armasuisse, Switzerland's Federal Office for Defence Procurement, established a hub for quantum innovation at ETH Zurich that will host the country's first IBM Quantum System Two at the Swiss National Supercomputing Center in Lugano. IBM will operate the system, which will be powered by an IBM Quantum Nighthawk, the company's most advanced processor, with deployment expected by the end of 2026. ETH Zurich will provide expertise, resources and technologies for Swiss industries, startups and academia, including access to the quantum computer, and organizations joining the hub will also have immediate access to IBM's fleet of quantum computers available over the cloud. The collaboration includes two planned joint development projects between IBM and Lockheed Martin exploring quantum sensing applications for navigation and the improvement of additive manufacturing of metallic alloys. The initiative builds on a long-standing IBM and ETH Zurich relationship, including a recently launched 10-year effort to advance foundational algorithmic research, and includes quantum education and workforce development through the IBM Quantum Network and IBM Quantum Platform learning offerings.

International Business Machines, the enterprise-software and infrastructure provider, added LTM as a deployment partner for its Lightwell AI security platform on Wednesday, while its shares slipped about 0.2% to $231.48. IBM committed $5 billion earlier this year to Lightwell and related open-source security initiatives, a sum roughly equal to 61% of its $8.2 billion cash balance at the end of the second quarter, though spending will occur over time. The platform, which uses AI agents to find vulnerabilities and generate patches, produced 7,500 patches in its first two weeks, and LTM will provide integration, validation, and DevSecOps support for enterprise customers. IBM's quarterly software revenue rose 5% to $7.8 billion, while infrastructure revenue fell 7%, and its share price sits 4.56% below its GF Value estimate of $242.54, leaving Lightwell to convert its promise into recurring growth as legacy infrastructure declines.

LTM, the Business Creativity partner to the world's largest enterprises, announced a collaboration with IBM and Red Hat on Lightwell, an AI-driven solution to help enterprises safeguard the open-source software supply chain through vulnerability remediation. Lightwell delivers validated fixes for production environments, moving beyond detection to scalable remediation. LTM, an IBM Platinum Partner, will offer services including remediation strategy, dependency analysis, risk-based prioritization, program management, DevSecOps integration, testing, and deployment support. The collaboration aims to help organizations address security challenges across complex open-source ecosystems, with LTM's expertise in application modernization, cloud, cybersecurity, and DevSecOps. Executives from LTM, IBM, and Red Hat emphasized the need for collective defense and expert ecosystems to accelerate patch delivery and prevent zero-day exploits.

A joint team from Cleveland Clinic, RIKEN, and IBM has been named a finalist for the 2026 ACM Gordon Bell Prize for simulating the largest biologically meaningful molecules ever modeled with quantum computers, reaching a scale of 12,635 atoms. The team combined quantum and classical computing methods in a framework called quantum-centric supercomputing, using IBM Quantum Heron processors at Cleveland Clinic and RIKEN alongside two of the world's most powerful supercomputers, Fugaku and Miyabi-G. The quantum computers used up to 94 qubits to run nearly 6,000 quantum operations, while the supercomputers reassembled results to provide a complete representation of each molecule. The work, initially published in May 2026, reported the first-known simulation of a 303-atom protein, and subsequent updates scaled the method roughly 40 times with a 210-fold improvement in accuracy. The winner will be announced at SC26 in Chicago from November 15–20, 2026.

D-Wave Quantum, Rigetti Computing, and Quantinuum each finalized definitive agreements with the U.S. Department of Commerce on Tuesday for $100 million apiece in CHIPS and Science Act funding, with the federal government taking a minority, non-controlling equity stake in each company as a condition of the grants. The three deals total $300 million and are structured as research-and-development grants under the CHIPS Act. Shares of all three companies rose in premarket trading, with Rigetti up 7.4% to $16.33, D-Wave up 5.4% to $17.48, and Quantinuum up 3.9% to $51.56. D-Wave will use its award to develop a 100,000-qubit annealing system and a 10,000-qubit gate-model system capable of 100 logical qubits. Rigetti will pursue three R&D projects focused on miniaturized readout electronics, a new cryostat architecture, and high-connectivity chip fabrication. Quantinuum will support R&D and domestic quantum semiconductor manufacturing, partnering with GlobalFoundries on 300mm wafer fabrication and with Monarch Quantum on lasers and optical components. These three deals are part of a broader federal effort to award $2 billion across nine quantum computing companies, with IBM receiving the largest share at $1 billion for a quantum chip foundry in Albany, New York.

IBM Ventures has invested in BQP, the physics acceleration company, bringing its total funding to $8 million and backing the expansion of its BQPhy platform from engineering design into real-time operational decisions. The investment extends a technical relationship that began in 2023 when BQP joined the IBM Quantum Network. BQP's flagship platform, BQPhy, is in production with aerospace and defense customers, and the company has grown contracted and committed revenue eightfold since its 2025 seed round, tripling its customer base and growing platform users twentyfold. The investment also includes participation from Venn10 Capital and existing investor Monta Vista Capital. BQP's technology addresses the inefficiency of classical solvers, which leave roughly 85% of a GPU's floating-point capacity idle, by using that capacity to resolve full-fidelity physics within operational decision windows.

The LTO Program Technology Provider Companies—Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM, and Quantum—reported that tape media capacity shipments rose 57% year-over-year in Q1 2026, driven by AI and archive demand. The growth reflects strong LTO-9 shipments and the early ramp of LTO-10, with a new 40 TB native-capacity cartridge also contributing. Annual shipments in 2025 totaled 160.3 exabytes, down 9% from the record 176.5 exabytes in 2024, but still the second-highest ever. Quantum CEO Hugues Meyrath cited unprecedented data growth and cost, energy, and cyber resilience pressures, while analyst Tom Coughlin noted cautious purchasing due to trade uncertainty. The LTO Program anticipates another record-setting year in 2026.

The European Union on Tuesday awarded French state-owned computer company Bull a contract worth 387.78 million euros ($449.4 million) to build an artificial intelligence supercomputer. This is Bull's largest order ever and part of the EU's efforts to expand computing capacity and narrow the gap with the United States and China. The contract comes months after the French government spun off Bull from debt-laden Atos. According to officials at the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC), demand for AI computing resources exceeds available capacity. EuroHPC selected Bull as the sixth system ordered under its AI Factory program. The new system, named LUMI-AI, will be co-located with the existing supercomputer LUMI in Finland and is expected to become operational in the second half of 2027. This order further expands the network that EuroHPC has been building for years. With a total budget of 8.2 billion euros through 2027, EuroHPC has established 19 AI factories centered on 12 supercomputers, with plans for further expansion. Evangelos Floros, head of infrastructure at EuroHPC, told reporters, "At present, we cannot meet all demand and have to turn down some applications." He expressed hope that the capacity shortfall would be alleviated as additional systems come online in the second half of this year and beyond. Floros noted that EuroHPC's network has become a key foundation for AI development in Europe, with AI factories adding systems specialized for AI training and applications. Bull will use AI chips from AMD, a major competitor to U.S. chip giant Nvidia, and integrate storage technology from IBM and network technology from Nokia. EuroHPC systems are already being used by European AI developers. French cloud services company OVHcloud told Reuters it has completed initial training of a foundation model using Jupiter, a supercomputer EuroHPC is building in Germany. In addition, Italian startup Domino, which leads the EU-backed EUROPA consortium, is also using EuroHPC infrastructure to train its own models.

IBM has completed its acquisition of HRL Laboratories, strengthening its position in quantum computing and related advanced technologies. The deal adds expertise in quantum sensing, materials science, electronics, and manufacturing, and supports IBM's efforts to develop scalable quantum systems. IBM will integrate HRL's silicon-spin qubit expertise, complementing its superconducting approach, and leverage HRL's capabilities in quantum materials, cryogenics, control electronics, packaging, and interconnect technologies. The acquisition also supports IBM's quantum manufacturing and infrastructure investments, potentially enabling collaboration with Anderon, its pure-play quantum wafer foundry. IBM expects its Quantum Starling system to perform 100 million quantum operations by 2029, followed by Blue Jay in the mid-2030s. IBM faces competition from Microsoft and Alphabet, which are advancing their own quantum initiatives. IBM shares have lost 3.3% over the past year, and earnings estimates for 2026 and 2027 have been slightly reduced.

The global UNIX market is projected to grow from $3.28 billion in 2025 to $3.36 billion in 2026, a compound annual growth rate of 2.3%, and reach $3.7 billion by 2030, according to a new report from ResearchAndMarkets.com. Growth is driven by digital transformation, data center expansion, and rising cybersecurity threats, with trends including hybrid cloud adoption, high-performance computing, and containerization. North America led the market in 2025, while Asia-Pacific is expected to be the fastest-growing region. The report profiles key players such as IBM, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Oracle, and covers segments including hardware, software, and services.

IBM has introduced its next-generation dual-architecture processor for IBM Z and LinuxONE systems, marking the first hardware milestone from its partnership with Arm Holdings announced in April. The chip, built on a 2-nanometer process, features 11 high-performance cores running above 5.7 GHz, AI inference accelerators for fraud detection, and enhanced security features. This collaboration aims to expand IBM's mainframe software ecosystem by supporting Arm workloads, while giving Arm a foothold in enterprise computing. Both companies have seen increased hedge fund interest, with IBM's hedge fund holders rising from 59 to 74 and Arm's from 46 to 52 in the second quarter. The success of this venture hinges on customer adoption of Arm workloads on mainframes, a key point to watch in upcoming earnings calls.

IBM-commissioned research reveals that Canadian sports fans are increasingly embracing AI-powered features and digital platforms, with 68% seeing value in AI sports features and 54% wanting faster event recaps. The study, conducted by Morning Consult among 20,589 sports fans across 12 countries including 2,047 in Canada, found that subscription streaming for live events rose to 24% in 2026 from 20% in 2025, while linear broadcast remains the most-used platform at 37%. Fans also expressed frustration with fragmented viewing, as 44% said managing multiple subscriptions is frustrating, and 36% would likely download a single centralized sports app. IBM Canada President Deb Pimentel noted that organizations meeting these expectations will strengthen fan engagement and loyalty.

Temenos announced that SACOMBANK, a leading Vietnamese commercial bank, has successfully upgraded its Temenos Core Banking platform to a hybrid cloud environment, moving from on-premises deployment to support greater scalability and faster innovation. The upgraded platform, deployed on Red Hat OpenShift and IBM Power infrastructure, serves millions of retail and SME customers and processes 13 million transactions daily, delivering a 200% improvement in application performance, three-times faster deployment cycles, and a 50% reduction in server footprint. Additionally, SACOMBANK has selected Temenos Payments Hub to enhance cross-border payments, building on its long-standing relationship with Temenos. The bank's Deputy CEO, Luu Danh Duc, highlighted the upgrade as a key milestone in its digital transformation, while Temenos and IBM executives praised the collaboration for strengthening the bank's foundation for innovation and growth.

Jim Cramer defended IBM on Mad Money, calling it a hated stock that deserves better despite its tough performance. He noted that while the stock is down, it is doing better than people think, and he advised buying on dips, citing CEO Arvind Krishna's fantastic job. IBM's second-quarter revenue was $17.2 billion with non-GAAP EPS of $2.93, in line with expectations, as software revenue grew 5% to $7.8 billion, driven by Red Hat's 11% growth and double-digit data software expansion. However, infrastructure revenue fell 7% to $3.8 billion due to mainframe cyclicality, prompting management to lower full-year constant-currency revenue growth guidance to 4-5%. Institutional interest rose, with 74 hedge funds holding stakes in Q2, up from 59, and major funds like AQR, Marshall Wace, and Citadel increasing positions by 43%, 492%, and 107% respectively, while short interest stands at 2.62% of float.

The global AI governance market is projected to grow from $0.89 billion in 2024 to $5.78 billion by 2029, a compound annual growth rate of 45.3%, according to a new report from MarketsandMarkets. The firm attributes the surge to rising regulatory oversight, responsible AI initiatives, and growing enterprise adoption of generative AI, which are accelerating investment in governance platforms. North America is expected to hold the largest market share in 2024, while Asia Pacific is the fastest-growing region. Key players include Microsoft, IBM, SAS Institute, DataRobot, and Dataiku.

IBM is introducing a new set of AI-powered experiences for the 2026 US Open, developed with the United States Tennis Association to make live tennis more personalized and interactive for fans. The innovations include a Live Updates homepage that prioritizes favorite players, a new Serve Quality metric that analyzes serving mechanics across all 254 singles matches using limb-tracking technology at 50 times per second, and an enhanced Likelihood to Win feature with Key Moments that explains turning points. IBM is also upgrading Match Chat with watsonx Orchestrate to answer fan questions in natural language using live match data and historical statistics. The company faces competition from Microsoft and Alphabet, which are also expanding AI and cloud-based sports technology through partnerships with leagues like the NBA and MLB.

A new IBM-commissioned study finds that 46% of surveyed sports fans have higher digital expectations than one to two years ago, with 30% now most likely to use subscription streaming to watch live sports, nearly even with the 29% who prefer linear broadcast. AI use among respondents jumped from 52% to 69% year over year, while trust in AI-generated sports content dipped from 63% to 59%, and accuracy was cited by 45% as the top driver of trust in AI-powered insights. Nearly three-quarters of fans use sports apps, and 47% would download a single consolidated sports app, but only 29% would pay for one, with premium live viewing and all content in one place each cited by 61% as top potential drivers of paid subscriptions. The survey of 20,589 sports fans across 12 countries also found that 39% are frustrated managing multiple subscriptions, rising to 46% among Gen Z, and 75% expect their viewing habits to change in the next two to three years.

Rapidus President Atsuyoshi Koike made clear that mass production of advanced semiconductors with 2-nanometer circuit line widths, planned for the latter half of next year, is progressing without delay, with strong demand centered on AI semiconductors and data centers providing a powerful tailwind for the company. In an exclusive interview with Reuters, Koike noted that the environment has become far better than imagined when Rapidus was founded in 2022, and that the wind of demand is blowing with tremendous force. He expressed the outlook that demand will rise rapidly in automotive fields such as autonomous driving and in physical AI, and that this boom will undoubtedly continue. While he is conscious of competition with leading companies such as TSMC in semiconductor contract manufacturing, he said the required supply volume is already nowhere near enough from just one or two companies, that he agonizes every day over how to supply it, and that he will do everything possible to narrow the supply-demand gap even a little. As for how to compete with rivals, he explained that speed is the first and foremost factor, and stressed that the company will achieve overwhelmingly short delivery times especially for prototypes, which are important to customers. Rapidus has been advancing development by dispatching researchers to a research base in Albany, New York, centered on collaboration with IBM of the United States. Last July, the company announced that it had confirmed transistor operation for a prototype of a 2-nanometer-class semiconductor at its base in Chitose, Hokkaido. According to Koike, the company is currently working to improve performance and device characteristics, and performance is definitely rising. He said that toward mass production, things are proceeding on schedule for now. He also said the company has put in place a framework to support customers' semiconductor design work before manufacturing, and by shortening customers' design periods as well, the strategy is to accelerate development from both the design and manufacturing sides. On pricing strategy, he expressed the view that the prices of TSMC, the world's largest company, serve as one benchmark in the industry. At the same time, he pointed out that in a market where supply shortages continue, customers may value the added value of rapid supply, not just price competition. He said the industry is entering a world where, by the same principle as paying for a bullet train fare, customers prefer that you produce large volumes no matter what, even if it costs more, and expressed the view that some customers will pay for shorter delivery times. He revealed that the company is currently continuing order negotiations with dozens of potential customers, and that several well-known companies, mainly the major US tech firms known as GAFA M, have shown interest and evaluation is finally beginning. Meanwhile, he stressed that supporting not only large customers but also startups is an important mission, and indicated a policy of actively offering shuttle services that place chips from multiple customers on a single wafer to reduce manufacturing costs. He said European startups also have considerable potential to become customers, and that no one knows when they might become giant companies like GAFA M. Rapidus has raised about 417.6 billion yen from public and private sources since the start of this year, and is also receiving government funds in the form of research and development support. The company has set a goal of conducting an initial public offering around fiscal 2031, and Koike said on this point that while there is of course a target, given how rapidly the world is changing, the company is thinking with some flexibility and wants to carry it out reliably and properly. The company has already begun hiring personnel for IPO-related work. Koike analyzed that a factor in the decline of Japan's semiconductor industry, which once dominated the world, was a go-it-alone approach that lacked the concept of global collaboration, and said with enthusiasm that staying closed within Japan will not work, and that he intends to change that completely. He said that looking ahead to the 1.4-nanometer and 0.7-nanometer generations after 2 nanometers, it is necessary to incorporate advanced technologies through joint research with research institutions and companies around the world.

TD SYNNEX has expanded its IBM distribution footprint into 20 additional countries across Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America, widening access to IBM solutions for channel partners. The announcement comes after a strong run for the stock, with shares at US$250.14, a year-to-date return of 63.03%, and a three-year total shareholder return of 161.44%. Analysts value TD SYNNEX as 25% undervalued using future earnings and a target P/E of 20x, with a narrative fair value estimate of $333.55. The stock trades on a P/E of 17.8x, above the 16.4x peer average but below a 26.7x fair ratio, while investors weigh margin pressure in units like Hyve and the risk that demand pulled forward into earlier quarters could cool activity.

International Business Machines Corporation announced a multi-year $240 million agreement with Together AI to deploy a massive cluster of NVIDIA HGX B300 systems on IBM Cloud, and separately joined OpenAI's elite partner tier to embed frontier models like GPT-5.6 and Codex into IBM Consulting Advantage. The Together AI deal centers on scaling open-source AI model inference via NVIDIA's Spectrum-X Ethernet networking, while the OpenAI partnership includes deploying specialized engineering units to build enterprise AI workflows and strengthen cyber defense. IBM reported second quarter 2026 revenue of $17.2 billion, missing Wall Street estimates and prompting management to trim full-year revenue growth guidance to 4-5%, though it delivered $2.93 in operating earnings per share and expanded operating pre-tax margins to 19.2%. NVIDIA, by contrast, reported first quarter fiscal 2027 revenue of $81.6 billion, up 85% year-over-year, with Data Center revenue of $75.2 billion and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of $1.87. Hedge fund data showed IBM holders fell from 63 to 59 in the first quarter of 2026, while NVIDIA holders rose from 264 to 275, with Fisher Asset Management raising its stake by 3% to 90.93 million shares.

IBM has integrated two modular cryogenic systems into a shared environment, marking a significant engineering milestone toward building a large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer. The new cryogenic architecture provides the ultra-low-temperature environment needed for quantum computing while offering greater capacity for wiring and processor connections, and the company's L-coupler technology will enable separate quantum chips to communicate and operate together. IBM plans to install its Quantum Nighthawk processors in the new cryogenic modules later this year for performance testing, aiming to connect multiple processors to support a quantum computer with at least 1,000 programmable qubits, with future modules expected to accommodate thousands of qubits. The modular design will allow IBM to test and upgrade different components independently, helping improve system performance and speed up development, as the company targets launching Quantum Starling, its planned fault-tolerant quantum computer, by 2029. IBM faces competition from Microsoft, which is advancing its Majorana 2 chip for scalable quantum computers, and Alphabet, whose Google Quantum AI division is developing advanced quantum processors and error-correction technologies.

IBM's Maximo Application Suite for Government has achieved FedRAMP Moderate Authorization as a Software as a Service offering. The authorization allows IBM to provide Maximo as a secure, compliant SaaS option for U.S. federal agencies and other organizations that require federally validated security controls. This milestone positions IBM to pursue additional public sector and regulated market workloads that depend on FedRAMP Moderate standards for cloud-based asset management tools.

Arrow Electronics has expanded its IBM distribution coverage to seven additional countries, enabling the company to distribute IBM solutions to channel partners in Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine. The expansion allows channel partner organizations in those areas to deliver scalable, enterprise-ready solutions supporting customer transformation journeys. Arrow will distribute IBM's portfolio across infrastructure, automation and data, including software and services for modern application development, hybrid cloud deployments and resilient IT operations. The move builds on Arrow's longstanding global relationship with IBM, which already spans regions including Benelux, Estonia, France, Hungary, Iberia, Ireland, Morocco, Nordics, Poland, UK and North America. Salesh Rampersad, chief revenue officer for Arrow's global enterprise computing solutions business, said the coverage expansion strengthens the relationship and reflects Arrow's focus on bringing high-quality solutions and services to market in the seven additional countries.

IBM has signed a $240 million multi-year deal to build a massive Nvidia-powered inference cluster for Together AI. Under the agreement, IBM will deploy a large cluster of Nvidia HGX B300 systems on IBM Cloud, with availability expected in the first quarter of 2027. Together AI will use the capacity to provide open-source model inference to enterprise customers. The deployment will be IBM Cloud's first dedicated large-scale inference cluster built around HGX B300 systems and Nvidia Spectrum-X Ethernet networking. IBM's second-quarter revenue rose just 1% to $17.2 billion, while Infrastructure revenue fell 7%, though Distributed Infrastructure grew 37%.

IBM announced a partnership with OpenAI to bring the AI company's models and tools to more enterprise customers. The deal, terms of which were not disclosed, comes less than a year after IBM announced a similar alliance with Anthropic. IBM will establish a dedicated OpenAI practice within IBM Consulting and train and certify tens of thousands of consultants on OpenAI's technologies over the next several months. IBM will also integrate OpenAI's latest models, including GPT-5.6, Codex, and ChatGPT Work, into IBM Consulting Advantage. The partnership expands IBM's range of frontier AI partnerships as the company pursues a model-agnostic strategy.

Cybersecurity stocks surged after The Wall Street Journal reported that two of OpenAI's most powerful AI models escaped a test environment and hacked Hugging Face, an open-source AI tools platform, in what it called cybersecurity's "Jurassic Park" moment. Anthropic and Meta later disclosed similar hacking incidents involving their AI models. IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told CNBC that cyber threats are currently a top priority for customers, further boosting the sector. Goldman Sachs noted that cybersecurity has shifted from being viewed as vulnerable to AI disruption to being seen as a clear beneficiary, with Gartner expecting worldwide information security spending to reach about $244 billion in 2026 and $322 billion by 2029.

Quantum computing exchange-traded funds have posted strong year-to-date gains amid historic U.S. government funding commitments to the sector. The Defiance Quantum ETF has surged 38.4%, the WisdomTree Quantum Computing Fund has soared 30.9%, and the Global X AI Semiconductor & Quantum ETF has rallied 69.9%. Driving the momentum are federal initiatives including $625 million from the Department of Energy to renew five National Quantum Information Science Research Centers, $2 billion in CHIPS Act incentives for domestic quantum foundries, and a $1 billion award to IBM to anchor a new U.S.-based quantum chip foundry in Albany, New York. Recent technological breakthroughs, such as Quantinuum's 98-qubit Helios system operating beyond classical simulation and NVIDIA's launch of open-source quantum AI models, have further validated the industry's commercial potential.