Kaiser Permanente medical staff test a patient for COVID-19 at a drive-through facility in San Francisco. (Photo: Jason Doiy/ALM)

The Open COVID Pledge has added a big group of tech heavy hitters.

IBM Corp., Microsoft Corp., Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. and Sandia National Laboratories have pledged free use of their intellectual property to fight COVID-19 during the pandemic, joining a growing list of tech companies and academic and research institutions.