Insider Brief
- IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said the company expects quantum computing to begin making a measurable contribution to revenue and profit by 2028 or 2029, citing new research that he said demonstrates growing commercial potential for the technology.
- Krishna said IBM‘s quantum computers are uncovering material behaviors beyond the reach of conventional computers, with potential applications in batteries, advanced materials, fusion energy and drug discovery, while the company continues investing in quantum hardware through a planned standalone chip foundry.
- Addressing investor concerns following IBM‘s recent earnings-related stock decline, Krishna said delayed customer projects were being deferred rather than canceled, noting that about 40% of the postponed deals had already closed within three to four weeks.
IBM expects quantum computing to begin making a measurable contribution to the company’s financial results within the next few years, as the technology moves closer to commercial use, Chief Executive Officer Arvind Krishna told CNBC.
Speaking on CNBC’s “Mad Money,” Krishna said IBM believes quantum computing is approaching an inflection point after years of research and development. His comments came as IBM and startup Algorithmiq, among others, announced new research they said demonstrated quantum advantage, a milestone in which a quantum computer performs a specific computational task more efficiently than today’s most powerful classical computers while also verifying the correctness of its results.
“I think that in 2028 or 2029, you’ll see it have a measurable impact on our top line and bottom line,” Krishna said. “By the end of the 2030s, we are now pretty convinced this is a trillion dollars of value.”
The remarks provide a clear timeline for when IBM expects its decades-long investment in quantum computing to translate into meaningful revenue and profits.
Commercial Expectations
Quantum computers use the principles of quantum mechanics to process certain types of calculations differently than conventional computers. Researchers believe they could eventually tackle problems involving chemistry, materials science and optimization that would be impractical for today’s classical systems.
Krishna said IBM‘s latest research demonstrated that quantum computers are already beginning to reveal scientific phenomena that conventional computers have struggled to simulate.
“Quantum computer can do things better, faster, cheaper, in a way that normal classical computers cannot do at this time,” Krishna said.
According to Krishna, those capabilities could eventually support advances in battery development, new materials, fusion energy and pharmaceutical research.
The comments follow IBM‘s announcement Thursday with Algorithmiq that the companies had demonstrated what they described as quantum advantage using an error-mitigated quantum simulation. The work aims to show that useful quantum computations can be performed even before fully fault-tolerant quantum computers become available.
Manufacturing and Competition
IBM has also expanded its investment in quantum hardware.
In May, the company announced plans to establish a standalone quantum chip foundry, supported by a $1 billion commitment from the U.S. Department of Commerce through the CHIPS incentive program and a matching $1 billion investment from IBM.
The foundry is intended to strengthen domestic manufacturing of quantum processors as competition intensifies across the industry.
IBM faces growing competition from companies including Google and Rigetti Computing, as well as a wave of startups developing quantum hardware, software and enabling technologies. Several technology companies have also accelerated investments in quantum error correction, which seeks to reduce the computational errors that currently limit quantum computers’ scale and reliability.
Despite continued technical challenges — including reducing error rates, increasing qubit counts and scaling systems to larger sizes — IBM has maintained an aggressive development roadmap centered on increasingly capable quantum processors.
Addressing Investor Concerns
Krishna also addressed investor concerns following IBM‘s recent earnings report, which triggered the company’s largest single-day stock decline on record after some customers delayed capital spending decisions.
Shares fell sharply after the company disclosed that several enterprise deals had been postponed, prompting questions about near-term demand and whether rapid advances in artificial intelligence could pressure parts of IBM‘s software business.
Krishna said the delayed projects were not being abandoned.
“Here’s the good news: about 40% of them have already closed in three to four weeks. … That’s a good signal that it is a deferral, not a destruction.”
