IBM unveils world's first sub-1nm chip technology, eyes next leap in AI computing

IBM has unveiled what it calls the world's first sub-1 nanometre (nm) chip technology, a research breakthrough that the company says could extend advances in semiconductor performance as the industry approaches the physical limits of transistor scaling. The prototype, built on a 0.7nm (7 angstrom) process, uses a new three-dimensional Nanostack architecture that vertically stacks transistors instead of relying only on shrinking them. IBM said the technology is designed to support increasingly demanding artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing and high-performance computing workloads.

The announcement comes as chipmakers look for new ways to sustain the pace of innovation described by Moore's Law, the principle proposed by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore that the number of transistors on a chip would roughly double every two years. As transistors approach atomic dimensions, continuing that trend through conventional scaling has become increasingly difficult because of power, heat and manufacturing constraints.

"The next frontier of semiconductor innovation isn't just about making things smaller — it's about rethinking how chips are built from the ground up," IBM said in the announcement.

Packs 100 billion transistors, to deliver up to 50% higher performance

The company said the new chip packs nearly 100 billion transistors into an area roughly the size of a fingernail—almost twice the transistor density of its 2nm technology, which it introduced in 2021. According to IBM, the sub-1nm design can deliver up to 50% higher performance at the same power level, or up to 70% lower power consumption while maintaining the same performance, compared with its 2nm technology.

IBM attributed the gains to advances across multiple areas of semiconductor design, including wafer bonding, SRAM scaling, new channel materials and the Nanostack architecture, which enables vertical integration of transistors to improve density without depending solely on further miniaturisation.

"The era of simple scaling is over," IBM said, adding that "future breakthroughs will come from integrating materials, devices and architectures in entirely new ways."

The company said the technology marks the beginning of what it calls the Angstrom era of semiconductor development, where transistor dimensions are measured in angstroms rather than nanometres. One angstrom is one-tenth of a nanometre, making the new technology a 7-angstrom node. To illustrate the scale, IBM noted that a human red blood cell is about 7,000 nanometres wide—roughly 10,000 times larger than the chip's 0.7nm transistor node.

IBM said the technology could eventually be used in AI systems, cloud infrastructure, edge computing, smartphones and other next-generation electronics, where improving performance while reducing energy consumption is becoming increasingly important. The company described the announcement as a research milestone rather than a commercial product. Reuters reported that IBM expects commercial production could be possible within the next five years, although it has not yet announced a manufacturing partner for the technology.