June 25, 2026, (Inside AI) — IBM on Thursday revealed what it calls the world's first technology for producing chips smaller than 1 nanometer, a milestone in the semiconductor industry's relentless pursuit of packing more power into tinier spaces. The new process yields a transistor architecture of 0.7 nanometers, or 7 angstroms, a scale that once seemed physically impossible.
The breakthrough, announced from Armonk, New York, sent IBM shares up over 6% in premarket trading, though they remain down about 11% for the year. The timing is critical as chipmakers struggle to sustain Moore's Law while meeting the explosive computational demands of modern AI systems.
IBM's advance directly challenges contract manufacturing giants TSMC and Intel, both racing to deliver next-generation nodes. Last week, Intel said its 18A process, making 1.8-nanometer chips, moved into risk production—the final testing stage before commercial manufacturing.
IBM's 0.7-nanometer chip crams nearly 100 billion transistors onto a fingernail-sized surface. That's about double the density of its 2-nanometer chip from 2021, delivering up to 50% higher performance or 70% greater energy efficiency.
The secret is a new transistor design called "nanostack." Instead of laying transistors flat, the design stacks them vertically in three dimensions, squeezing more into the same volume. It's a fundamental rethinking of chip architecture, not just a shrink.
"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," said Jay Gambetta, director of IBM Research.
IBM says production could begin within five years. The company has previously licensed chip technologies to Samsung and Japan's Rapidus. It has not yet named a manufacturing partner for this technology, leaving open questions about how quickly it can scale.
The announcement underscores a broader industry shift toward 3D stacking and novel materials as traditional scaling hits atomic limits. While IBM has no mass-production fabs, its research arm consistently pioneers foundational breakthroughs that others later commercialize. The nanostack approach could redefine chip design for the AI era, where power and thermal constraints are as critical as raw speed.
