Anderon, IBM’s new quantum chip manufacturing company, has finalized an agreement with the U.S. Department of Commerce for up to $1 billion in CHIPS Act funding, finalizing an award first outlined in a letter of intent announced in May.

The funding will support research and development at Anderon’s 300-millimeter quantum wafer foundry in Albany, New York. IBM said it is also investing another $1 billion in the foundry, which will manufacture quantum wafers for IBM and other quantum hardware developers, increasing domestic capacity to produce specialized quantum hardware.

When IBM and the Commerce Department disclosed the planned award, the $1 billion commitment was still subject to negotiation of a final agreement. The Commerce Department now describes the deal as a final R&D award of up to $1 billion under the CHIPS and Science Act.

Anderon also announced that the first quantum wafers are now moving through its manufacturing facility. The company said it offers specialized wafers for superconducting qubit arrays, quantum input/output signaling and components used in quantum readout systems. The firm plans to expand to other quantum modalities over time.

IBM describes Anderon as a pure-play quantum foundry, borrowing a model familiar from the conventional semiconductor industry in which a specialized manufacturer fabricates chips for outside customers. In Anderon’s case, the facility is dedicated to quantum wafers and offers established fabrication processes, process design kits, wafer testing and advanced packaging.

“This investment helps establish the manufacturing foundation needed to support the next generation of quantum computers, enabling the industry to move from scientific progress to production-scale innovation,” Jay Gambetta, director of IBM Research and an IBM Fellow, wrote in a social media post. He noted that scalable wafer fabrication will become a more important part of the technology stack as the industry works toward fault-tolerant quantum computing.

The Anderon award is the largest share of the roughly $2 billion federal quantum funding package first outlined by the Commerce Department in May. That package includes awards for other quantum companies including GlobalFoundries, D-Wave, Rigetti Computing, PsiQuantum and Quantinuum. Commerce finalized those five awards on Sept. 8.

With its first wafers now moving through the Albany facility, Anderon’s next challenge will be turning that initial production into repeatable manufacturing for outside quantum hardware companies. The company plans to expand beyond superconducting systems over time, which could make the facility useful to developers working with other qubit technologies.