IBM has reached an agreement to acquire HRL Laboratories, a private quantum computing research organization jointly owned by Boeing and General Motors, the company announced Thursday. The move represents a significant expansion of IBM’s approach to developing quantum computing technology.
The tech giant has been locked in a race with Alphabet’s Google, Microsoft, and other competitors to build practical quantum machines capable of solving problems that would require conventional computers thousands of years to work through.
Earlier this year, in May, the Trump administration announced it would provide $1 billion to IBM to establish a new company called Anderon in New Albany, New York, which would function as a chip manufacturing facility for U.S. quantum computing companies.
While experts in both government and the tech sector broadly agree that quantum computing is on the horizon, the question of exactly how these machines will be built remains unsettled. Researchers are currently pursuing roughly six different methods for constructing quantum circuits, and the HRL acquisition will give IBM a foothold in a second approach.
IBM declined to reveal the financial terms of the deal but confirmed that Boeing and GM “will continue to partner with IBM” on quantum technologies once the transaction is complete.
IBM and Google have both championed the use of superconducting materials to build quantum circuits. HRL, which traces its roots to the former research division of aerospace company Hughes Aircraft and is located near Malibu, California, specializes in a different type of quantum circuit known as electron spin qubits.
Both superconducting and electron spin circuits can be manufactured using the same equipment already used to produce conventional computer chips. However, electron spin circuits have the advantage of being significantly smaller than their superconducting counterparts.
Jay Gambetta, director of IBM Research, told Reuters in a Wednesday interview that those smaller electron spin circuits will become increasingly valuable to IBM’s work following the delivery of its “Blue Jay” superconducting system in 2033.
“I and the team strongly believe that the future is going to be (electron) spins, or superconducting, or possibly a combination of them,” Gambetta said. “They (HRL) have a very strong spin qubit team, the strongest in the world. … I would not pursue a second path that was not built on a foundation that could be integrated together.”
In the near term, Gambetta said the HRL team — which currently produces chips at its California facility — will begin manufacturing chips at IBM’s advanced facility in New York. He also noted that IBM has “a parallel path” of spin-based quantum technology alongside its superconducting work “that we’ll make available very soon.”
IBM’s decision to embrace a second quantum technology mirrors a similar move made by Google earlier this year, when it added a second technology based on neutral atoms to its own quantum computing portfolio.
