ALBANY – IBM is leasing out the entire sixth floor of the ZEN building at the Albany Nanotech complex on Fuller Road, almost doubling the amount of space it has at the state-run semiconductor research and development facility.
IBM is perhaps the most important corporate tenant at Albany Nanotech, where the company does its most cutting-edge computer chip research and development with partners including Samsung, Intel and others.
A spokesperson for IBM’s research division did not respond to requests for comment on what the company’s plans are for the space, which is 49,775 square feet. IBM’s current lab and office space at Albany Nanotech totals more than 68,000 square feet, so the addition is substantial.
The sixth floor of the ZEN building was once occupied by CommerceHub, the online shopping software company that moved its operations to Colonie a few years ago.
The board of NY CREATES, the state-sponsored nonprofit that owns and operates Albany Nanotech’s real estate and oversees its research and manufacturing partnerships, approved the lease earlier this month but did not discuss IBM’s plans for it. A NY CREATES spokesman deferred questions to IBM.
IBM is notoriously closed-lipped with reporters. But the company has made a string of announcements of research and development partnerships with other companies that are supposed to take place at Albany Nanotech, so IBM likely has a growing need for more space. There is little unused space at Albany Nanotech, although the top floor at ZEN was available.
IBM announced last December a partnership with a Japanese chip manufacturing startup called Rapidus that is planning to put 100 employees in Albany. IBM will help Rapidus, which is funded by the Japanese government, develop cutting-edge 2-nanometer chip technology that IBM has developed in Albany. Rapidus wants to be able to replicate the technology by the end of the decade back in…
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