IBM Completes Acquisition of HRL Laboratories to Accelerate Quantum Innovation

Zapata Quantum has joined the IBM Quantum Network, the company announced, with plans to use IBM's quantum computers alongside its own use-case discovery and application development expertise. The Boston-based company, which trades over the counter under the ticker ZPTA, said the effort aims to close the quantum application gap by translating advances in quantum computing into mission-critical applications. Chief Executive Sumit Kapur said IBM's rapid progress toward fault-tolerant quantum computing brings that application gap into sharper focus, while Vice President of Strategy and Co-Founder Jonny Olson said superconducting qubits remain one of the most capable paths to advantage because their hardware is fast. The move builds on prior joint research between the two companies, including a landmark study published in Nature Biotechnology that produced experimentally validated candidates targeting KRAS and was named one of the journal's Top 10 Articles of 2025, as well as co-authored work in npj Quantum Information on variational quantum factoring. Zapata said insights from the network will inform Quantum Pilot, its hardware-agnostic platform that helps enterprises identify, prioritize and develop quantum applications as hardware matures.

Quantinuum secured a finalized US$100 million CHIPS R&D award from the U.S. Department of Commerce to support trapped ion quantum computer manufacturing in the United States. The company also announced new collaborations with Quanta Computer and Oracle tied to its trapped ion quantum hardware. As part of the Oracle tie-up, Quantinuum will place its Helios quantum computer inside Oracle data centers to support quantum cloud computing access. Quantinuum, a quantum computing hardware and software specialist in the IT industry, has a market cap of about US$12.7b. The company said the CHIPS R&D award and Oracle data center placement support its push to integrate quantum systems with AI and high performance computing through partners such as Oracle and HPE, though heavy reported losses and the risk of delays around its Sol and Apollo systems remain open issues.

IonQ announced a real-time quantum error correction decoder that runs complex workloads without slowing quantum computations. The company reported new deployments at the NVIDIA Accelerated Quantum Research Center, integrating its hardware into NVIDIA's quantum research stack, and disclosed a partnership with SDT in South Korea to support quantum computing access for regional enterprises and researchers. IonQ said the decoder handles benchmark circuits with up to 408 logical qubits and more than 31.5 million quantum operations with just 0.02% added time, running on a single off-the-shelf CPU while the quantum system keeps operating. IonQ, a US semiconductor player valued at about $17.4b, builds quantum computing systems for clients in the United States, Switzerland, and other regions. Investors will watch how many Superion 256 deployments move from contract to installed and active systems at sites like NVIDIA's research center, FIU and SDT's data center from 2027.

International Business Machines introduced an on-premises version of its Digital Asset Haven platform for regulated institutions, letting banks and other supervised entities run the platform inside their own data centers using existing controls. The beta deployment runs on IBM Z and LinuxONE, keeping digital asset keys, workflows, and compliance controls within existing environments, and includes an ISO 20022 adapter and Swift ledger connectivity. Separately, IBM and Anderon LLC reported operational production of quantum wafers, a manufacturing milestone for quantum hardware in the US tied to a CHIPS Act backed facility. Investors will watch how many regulated institutions move from pilot to production on the on-premises beta and Swift shared ledger integration through 2027, and whether Anderon's quantum wafers progress from initial runs to volume orders once that facility ramps.