IBM claims major chip breakthrough — Image: IBM

IBM on Thursday unveiled what it said was the world’s first sub-1nm chip technology — a node it calls the 0.7nm, or 7-angstrom, generation — as tech companies race to build semiconductors that can handle increasingly demanding AI workloads.

Shares of the Armonk, New York-based company rose over 6% in pre-market trading. They have fallen about 11% so far this year.

The announcement comes at a time when chip makers are searching for ways to maintain the decades-long trend of cramming more computing power into smaller spaces.

The new chip technology, which bolsters IBM’s position to compete with contract chip makers TSMC and Intel, has a transistor architecture of 0.7nm, or 7 angstroms.

Last week, Intel said the new generation of its 18A manufacturing process, which makes 1.8nm nanometer chips, moved into risk production, the testing phase before commercial manufacturing.

IBM said the 0.7nm chip will pack nearly 100 billion transistors onto a fingernail-sized surface, about twice the density of its 2nm chip unveiled in 2021, delivering up to 50% higher performance or 70% greater energy efficiency.

‘Nanostack’

To get there, IBM developed a new transistor design called “nanostack”. Instead of laying transistors flat, the design stacks them on top of each other in three dimensions, fitting more into the same volume of space.

“With our new nanostack architecture, we’re not just making smaller transistors, we’re reinventing how chips are built to deliver dramatically more power and energy efficiency,” director of IBM Research Jay Gambetta said.

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IBM says production could begin within five years. The company has previously licensed chip technologies to Samsung and Japan’s Rapidus. It has not announced a manufacturing partner for this technology. — Anhata Rooprai in Bengaluru and Stephen Nellis, (c) 2026 Reuters