IBM on Monday joined a slew of technology companies to announce plans for new investments in the United States, as the Trump administration pressures firms to expand their U.S. manufacturing.
The software company, headquartered in Armonk, N.Y., said it would invest $150 billion in the United States over the next five years, including $30 billion to support production of its mainframe and quantum computers. The announcement, framed in part as an effort to fuel the American economy, comes after the chipmaker Nvidia said this month it would invest $500 billion and produce all of its A.I. supercomputers in the United States.
“With this investment and manufacturing commitment, we are ensuring that IBM remains the epicenter of the world’s most advanced computing and AI capabilities,” Arvind Krishna, IBM’s chief executive, said in a statement.
But whether pledges from IBM and other tech giants fully come to fruition remains to be seen. Investments touted by major firms, including during President Trump’s first term, have at times fallen short of plans described in their announcements. A $10 billion project announced in Wisconsin by the electronics manufacturer Foxconn in 2018 — hailed by Mr. Trump as the “eighth wonder of the world” — fell far short of expectations.
The announcements have come steadily since Mr. Trump’s inauguration. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest chip manufacturer, said last month it would spend $100 billion in the United States over the next four years to expand its production capacity and bring its most advanced semiconductor processes to its operations in Arizona. In February, days after Apple’s chief executive met with Mr. Trump, the company said that it planned to spend $500 billion and hire 20,000 people in the United States over the next four years, and open a factory in Texas to make the machines that power the company’s push into artificial intelligence.
In January, Mr. Trump announced a joint venture between OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle to create at least $100 billion in computing infrastructure to power artificial intelligence, an initiative that added to tech companies’ significant investments in U.S. data centers, although the push to form the venture predated his term.
The Trump administration has pressured companies to produce more in the United States, with a particular aim at China. Even so, it has spared smartphones, computers, semiconductors and other electronics from tariffs Mr. Trump imposed on Chinese goods as part of his trade war.
