IBM says it plans to create ‘America’s first pure-play quantum foundry’ in collaboration with the Commerce Department.

IBM is breaking into the quantum computing foundry business.

IBM will receive half the award, while companies such as D-Wave and Rigetti will also get a piece. In return, the government will take equity stakes.

Quantum computing stocks rallied on Thursday after news of a major investment from the White House. Infleqtion, Rigetti, and IBM shares spiked.

The Trump administration has agreed to award $1 billion to International Business Machines Corp. to build a foundry for producing quantum computing chips, part of a broad strategy to bolster US leadership in an emerging industry.

Today, IBM (NYSE: IBM) and the U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC) announced a Letter of Intent (LOI) to build an American quantum chip foundry, securing the nation's global quantum leadership and fueling the country's growing quantum ecosystem.

This article is part of a package on the future of quantum computing. Read about the most promising applications of these machines here and see an illustrated field guide to qubits here. Inside a low-slung building in an office park near the southeastern edge of the San Francisco Bay,

Because it can easily break traditional encryption methods, the powerful technology could quickly make current cybersecurity methods useless.