IBM envisions a future of compute that combines quantum, AI, and classical into a framework capable of solving challenges beyond any of those compute hardware paradigms alone. That’s why we’re excited to announce today that the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) Genesis Mission selected an IBM project to accelerate AI-driven scientific discovery in a highly selective process, and that IBM will contribute up to $50 million of quantum system access to further the objectives of the DoE’s plan to help realize that future.

The department today announced the first projects selected under the Genesis Mission Request for Applications (RFA) as part of President Trump’s Genesis Mission. IBM is participating extensively in this mission as a member of the Genesis Mission Consortium, a select group of industry leaders committed to making the operation successful.

“Achieving the ambitious vision of the Genesis Mission will require invention and innovation across every layer of computation — from hardware and architecture to algorithms,” said Jay Gambetta, Director of IBM Research and IBM Fellow. “As IBM continues to build the future of computing, we are prepared and honored to help the United States bring to life a new platform that weaves together quantum computers, AI, and high-performance computing to dramatically expand our country’s capacity for scientific discovery.”

The Genesis Mission is a historic national initiative led by the DoE, which is building the world’s most powerful integrated science discovery platform. By uniting government, industry, academia, and philanthropy, the mission is accelerating breakthroughs in energy, scientific discovery, and national security through a new platform that combines AI, supercomputing, quantum computing, and advanced scientific instruments. The Genesis Mission directly aligns with IBM’s vision for computing. Over the past decade, IBM has advanced the technologies required for fault-tolerant quantum computing, in addition to showing real value from AI can emerge through small and efficient scientific models. An now, IBM is spearheading the vision for an era of quantum-centric supercomputing — where high-performance computing, quantum computing, and AI operate together in concert to solve problems no single technology could address on its own. 

IBM is already spearheading collaborative projects across research, government, and industry aligned with the goals of the Genesis Mission. Most recently, researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), IBM, and Cleveland Clinic used a quantum-centric workflow to simulate molten salts, materials used to generate tritium fuel for fusion reactors. That workflow further demonstrates a loop of quantum computers, supercomputers, and AI. In this case, AI agents proposed and screened many candidate salts from an ORNL database of 70 years of molten salt research, while GPU-accelerated supercomputers modeled them, and quantum computers tackled the finest details and most challenging aspects the simulation. This workflow has the potential to help the US realize fusion energy faster.

Today, IBM was also selected to lead a project selected under the Genesis Mission RFA. The goal of the Phase I RFA awards is to identify promising pathways toward transformative scientific capabilities and establish a foundation for future investment and scale. Project teams will design and demonstrate research workflows that integrate AI with scientific investigation, while rigorously evaluating whether those approaches can accelerate discovery, improve predictive capabilities, enhance experimentation, or generate new scientific insights.

The IBM project examines how AI and advanced accelerator hardware could support the development of more effective quantum applications by inverting the conventional workflow. This project begins with proven quantum algorithms and searches the scientific literature to find real-world problems that could fit these algorithms, aided by an agentic research assistant. This assistant will be able to read research, propose candidate matches, check them against formal criteria, and explain the reasoning for human experts to review. Humans are charged with defining the criteria and validating the proposals, while the AI performs the vast search beyond the capabilities beyond any one researcher.

To support the Genesis Mission, IBM will also provide up to the equivalent of $50 million of its world-leading utility-scale quantum compute access, powered by its 156-qubit IBM Quantum Heron and 120-Qubit IBM Quantum Nighthawk processors to DoE national labs and their collaborators over the next five years. Currently IBM has 15 quantum computers operational, with average uptime greater than 97% and round-the-clock access serving our more than 250,000 users. The latest Nighthawk-based systems will support 120 programmable qubits capable of 5,000+ QuOps and a throughput of up to 100,000 circuits per second. This contribution also features technical support for integration of quantum computing with classical HPC and Al resources at the national laboratories, as well as collaboration on agreed-upon activities.

IBM is already deeply integrated into the nation's quantum science ecosystem through IBM Quantum Innovation Center’s existing relationships with DoE national laboratories, including Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Los Alamos National Laboratory — as well as potential initiatives with four of the five DoE National Quantum Information Science Research Centers. Altogether, this provides a strong foundation for advancing the Genesis Mission.

IBM is proud to help lead this mission, and we believe its outcomes will be transformative to US society overall. We believe that together with the DoE and its collaborators, we can unlock the scale of computing required to tackle the United States’ most pressing scientific challenges.