International Business Machines, popularly known as IBM, has agreed to buy HRL Laboratories, a private quantum computing research lab jointly owned by Boeing and General Motors, adding another chapter to the tech company’s quantum computing efforts.
The acquisition of HRL Laboratories, as per the analysts, should help IBM to catch up against rivals like Alphabet’s Google, Microsoft, and others in terms of creating practical quantum machines that can crack problems that would take conventional computers thousands of years to solve.
In May 2026, United States President Donald Trump’s administration said it would award USD 1 billion to IBM to set up a new company called Anderon in New Albany, New York, to serve as a chip factory for American quantum computing firms. However, the acquisition of HRL Laboratories comes at a difficult time for IBM.
The venture just had its worst trading day in more than a century as a public company. Shares plunged 25% on Jyly 14, closing at USD 217.07, after the warning from the CEO, Arvind Krishna, regarding IBM missing second-quarter revenue estimates. The drop outpaced even the company’s previous worst day, a 23.7% fall on 19 October 1987, and wiped out roughly USD 68.8 billion in market value in a single session.
IBM did not disclose a price for the HRL deal but said that Boeing and GM “will continue to partner with IBM” on quantum technologies after the transaction.
IBM, along with Google, has been a proponent of using superconductors to craft quantum circuits. HRL, the former research arm of aerospace firm Hughes Aircraft based near Malibu, California, is known for making smaller electron spin quantum circuits called “qubits.”
“These smaller circuits will become useful for IBM’s efforts after its Blue Jay system, which uses superconducting chips, is delivered in 2033,” Jay Gambetta, director of IBM Research, told Reuters.
“I and the team strongly believe that the future is going to be (electron) spins, or superconducting, or possibly a combination of them. 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,” Gambetta said.
In the more immediate future, as per Gambetta, HRL’s team, which currently makes chips at its California facility, will start to make chips at IBM’s cutting-edge facility in New York.
“IBM has a parallel path of spin-based quantum technology in addition to its superconductors that we’ll make available very soon,” the senior official concluded.