IBM shares pop following Trump’s praise at White House quantum summit

Investing.com -- Shares of IBM climbed 3.75% in after-hours trading on Monday, spurred by a highly public shoutout from President Donald Trump during a White House signing ceremony focused on the future of quantum technology.

Flanked by tech heavyweights, the president singled out IBM CEO Arvind Krishna for his leadership. “IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, who’s a great man, who’s [doing] a really great job. What a job you’ve done,” Trump remarked to the gathered executives.

In a lighter moment, the president lamented his own history with the legacy tech giant’s stock, noting he divested his portfolio upon taking office. “I used to have that stock when it was much, much lower,” Trump joked. “I brilliantly sold it when I became president. That was not a good move.”

Beyond the market-moving praise, the core of the White House event was a strategic push to cement American dominance in next-generation computing, sensing, and networking. Trump signed two aggressive executive orders to accelerate the timeline for domestic quantum infrastructure:

1. 
   

   A Five-Year Sprint: The first order launches a national, government-backed effort to produce a fully operational quantum computer capable of advanced scientific calculations, alongside quantum-enabled networks and sensors, within the next five years.

   
   


2. 
   

   The 2031 Cryptography Deadline: The second mandate requires federal agencies to fully transition their computer systems to post-quantum cryptography by 2031, a crucial cybersecurity measure designed to protect government data from future quantum decryption.

   
   

The gathering served as a who’s who of the scientific and tech elite. Representing the industry alongside Krishna were Google President Ruth Porat, Inflection CEO Matthew Kinsella, and Nobel Prize-winning quantum physicist John Martinez Goldman.

Before signing the new mandates, Trump nodded to his administration’s previous groundwork in the sector, specifically referencing the National Quantum Initiative Act of 2018. That landmark legislation ultimately led to a doubling of federal investment in domestic quantum research and development.

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