AMD rises after partnership with IBM to develop “quantum-centric supercomputing”

IBM and Advanced Micro Devices are teaming up to develop “quantum-centric supercomputing” — a combination of one powerful investment theme that’s been a key driver of market performance and earnings growth (AI) with another whose commercial capabilities seemingly offer ample potential but are less proven to date (gate-model quantum computing).

In a press release published Tuesday, IBM said it’s working to integrate the chip designer’s products with its quantum computers to “efficiently accelerate a new class of emerging algorithms, which are outside the current reach of either paradigm working independently.”

Shares of AMD are up 3.2% as of 9:05 a.m. ET, while IBM shares are up more modestly on the news.

“The proposed effort could also help progress IBM’s vision to deliver fault-tolerant quantum computers by the end of this decade,” per the press release. “AMD technologies offer promise for providing real-time error correction capabilities, a key element of fault-tolerant quantum computing.”

This partnership underscores a challenge faced by smaller, pure-play quantum companies: a lot of established tech giants have a toehold in this area and are looking to enhance it. Even though AI development is clearly the priority in the tech space right now, we’ve seen how the massive budgets of the biggest tech companies have allowed for investments and acquisitions that reinforce their dominance. The fear for any upstarts is that quantum computing will, in this respect, end up like AI.

As such, it’s not surprising to see a company like Rigetti Computing giving back ground this morning.