The IBM research announcement is also an emphatic statement about the company’s unfolding strategy in the chip business. It will invest heavily in research, pursue streams of licensing revenue, and yet leave the manufacturing to others. For several months, IBM has been seeking to sell its chip-manufacturing operations, confirmed a person who has been briefed on the talks who would speak only on the condition of anonymity. The most likely buyer is GlobalFoundries, a large contract chip manufacturer, the person said, for a price of probably less than $2 billion.

IBM’s move to sell off its chip plants in East Fishkill, N.Y., and in Burlington, Vt., and its talks with GlobalFoundries and other companies were reported this year by The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News. GlobalFoundries was created in 2009 whenAdvanced Micro Devices spun out its manufacturing operations, and it later acquired the chip factories of Chartered Semiconductor. Globalfoundries, based in Santa Clara, Calif., has manufacturing operations in Germany, Singapore and a new chip factory outside Albany, N.Y. IBM has worked with GlobalFoundries on manufacturing technology and skill.