International Business Machines (IBM) Stock News

IBM (NYSE: IBM) signed a multi-year $240 million agreement with Together AI to deploy a large cluster of NVIDIA HGX B300 systems on IBM Cloud, targeted for availability in Q1 2027. Together AI will use this first large-scale, dedicated inference cluster on IBM Cloud, featuring NVIDIA Spectrum-X Ethernet networking, to deliver open-source model inference for enterprises. According to NVIDIA, the setup is built to provide up to 30x more AI factory output versus prior generations, aiming to improve performance and token economics for large-scale AI workloads.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Red Hat announced a program to provide Lightwell, their AI-driven open source vulnerability remediation service, at no charge to over 185 leading U.S. research universities and 100 major NGOs and think tanks. Eligible institutions gain access to a library of remediated, digitally signed and validated open source dependencies tailored to the software versions they already run, without sharing proprietary code, data or research.

Launched in May 2026 with a $5 billion commitment and more than 20,000 engineers, Lightwell has expanded from 6,500 to over 8,000 validated and remediated package versions, including fixes for 64 previously undisclosed vulnerabilities. IBM and Red Hat plan to begin onboarding eligible institutions in August 2026, building on collaborations with major global banks and technology partners.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Algorithmiq announced a joint demonstration of quantum advantage using an IBM Quantum Heron processor to simulate a heterogeneous quantum material in a regime that is difficult for leading classical methods. According to the companies, eight months after inclusion in the Quantum Advantage Tracker, no classical approach has reliably reproduced results across the full problem range.

The partners also introduced a framework for trusted quantum computation beyond classical verification, based on controlled noise manipulation, cross-device execution, and unbiased error mitigation with quantified uncertainty. Algorithmiq is open-sourcing monoprop, its best classical method for simulating molecular ground states, as a benchmark to independently test future quantum advantage claims.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Qedma Quantum Computing reported a breakthrough study showing trusted, error-mitigated quantum computation surpassing leading classical simulations, including those run on the Fugaku supercomputer. By combining IBM quantum computers, powered by the Heron processor, with Qedma’s QESEM error reduction software, researchers modeled long-lived quantum dynamics in systems up to 74 qubits.

The work explored a two-dimensional Floquet Ising model and found consistent, long-time oscillatory behavior where multiple classical methods disagreed. Results were cross-validated with RIKEN, BlueQubit, and Quantinuum hardware and uploaded to IBM’s Quantum Advantage Tracker to enable community benchmarking.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) and the University of Chicago demonstrated a quantum computation that meets core criteria for quantum advantage, solving a classically intractable sampling problem in about 15 minutes while enabling verification of result fidelity, according to IBM.

The team used a novel encoded circuit construction with error correction to run 70 logical qubits, 2,415 logical two-qubit operations and 468 logical T gates, achieving logical error rates about ten times lower than physical error rates and one of the largest logical quantum computing demonstrations to date.

IBM (NYSE:IBM) released findings from its 2026 Cost of a Data Breach Report showing that one in four malicious breaches were AI-enabled, a 56% increase year over year. These AI-driven incidents, largely deepfake impersonation and AI-enabled malware, cost companies an average of $6 million, about $1 million above the global average breach cost of $4.99 million.

According to IBM, organizations using AI and automation in security operations reduced breach costs by nearly $2 million on average, yet 25% have not adopted these tools. Most AI-driven attacks targeted critical infrastructure sectors (62%), with financial services breaches averaging $6.3 million and energy sector breaches $5.2 million. Over 20% of organizations reported breaches targeting AI models or applications, often due to compromised APIs, plugins, and cloud misconfigurations, while encryption and cryptographic visibility remain limited.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) signed a definitive agreement to acquire HRL Laboratories, a privately held R&D institution jointly owned by Boeing and General Motors, which will continue partnering with IBM on quantum applications. The deal, with undisclosed financial terms, is expected to close by the end of Q3 2026, subject to customary conditions and regulatory approvals.

According to IBM, HRL’s strengths in silicon‑spin qubits, quantum sensing, advanced materials, and high-speed electronics will complement IBM’s superconducting-qubit roadmap toward large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computers. HRL is expected to support IBM’s plans for future systems such as IBM Quantum Starling by 2029, projected to run 100 million quantum operations, and the later Blue Jay platform, projected at 1 billion operations. The acquisition also creates opportunities to collaborate with Anderon, IBM’s planned quantum wafer foundry, including potential development of spin-qubit manufacturing to help industrialize quantum technologies.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) reported second-quarter 2026 revenue of $17.2 billion, up 1% year over year, with GAAP net income from continuing operations of $2.2 billion and diluted EPS of $2.27. Gross margin was 57.7%, down 1.0 point, and pre-tax income margin was 14.4%.

Software revenue rose 5% to $7.8 billion, driven by Hybrid Cloud (Red Hat) +11% and Data +19%. Consulting was flat at $5.3 billion, while Infrastructure declined 7% to $3.8 billion, including a 42% drop in IBM Z and a 37% increase in Distributed Infrastructure. Financing revenue grew 12%.

IBM generated Q2 operating cash flow of $2.6 billion (up $0.9 billion) and free cash flow of $2.5 billion (down $0.3 billion). For the first half, free cash flow was $4.8 billion, flat year over year. IBM invested $10.5 billion in acquisitions year to date and ended the quarter with $8.2 billion in cash, restricted cash and marketable securities and total debt of $62.0 billion.

According to IBM, full-year 2026 constant-currency revenue growth is now expected at 4–5%, with currency neutral to growth, and free cash flow is expected to increase by about $1 billion year over year. The board declared a quarterly dividend of $1.69 per share, payable September 10, 2026, to shareholders of record on August 10, 2026.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced new offerings for its Power platform, including IBM Power Autonomous Operations, an AI agent that continuously monitors Power systems and can resolve capacity constraints up to 15x faster than manual intervention. It works alongside the recently launched IBM Bob Premium Package for i, an AI-powered development assistant engineered to speed IBM i application modernization and broaden the pool of developers who can work on the platform.

IBM also introduced the entry-level Power S1112, a compact Power11 server designed for on-premises AI inference, delivering up to 2x–3x better core performance than prior models and up to 69% greater energy efficiency than the Power S914. Availability dates span June to September 2026.