In the West you nearly only hear the echoes of Chinese Quantum startup news. But a former Microsoft Quantum employee has made his own Shanghai based startup. Taiyi Quantum was founded in January 2026 in Shanghai, China. What stands out is for China this is a huge pre-seed round: co-founded by former Microsoft chief quantum architect Dr. Hongbin Liu, the firm raised a 300 million yuan ($44 million USD) Pre-A funding round in June 2026.

The full name of the startup is Taiyi Liangsheng Shanghai Quantum Technology Co., Ltd..

According to Deelroom the investors involved are . Gaorong Capital and IDG Capital co-led the investment, with participation from Huakong Fund, Yunqi Partners, Fortune Capital, Boyuan Capital, SAIC Financial Holdings, Hengxu Capital, Yarui Capital, Qifu Capital, and Dianke Fund. I rarely get to cover Chinese Quantum news, but this seems to be a major new Quantum startup. (links listed a bit later on).

As you know, Neutral-atom quantum computing has emerged as one of the most promising approaches to building scalable quantum processors. Here we are talking about a Pre-A financing round to accelerate development of its ytterbium neutral-atom quantum computing platform and advance toward fault-tolerant quantum computers.

In recent years while first-generation neutral-atom processors relied primarily on alkali metals like Rubidium or Cesium with a single valence electron, Ytterbium is an alkaline-earth-like element with two valence electrons. This closed-shell electronic structure unlocks significant advantages for qubit control, state detection, and quantum error correction (QEC).

Major Shanghai DeepTech Quantum Push of 2026

This seems to be a fairly logical path for a Quantum startup in 2026. Ytterbium's two-valence-electron structure creates distinct "metastable" energy levels that separate the qubit computational space from the decay pathways during dynamic operations like two-qubit Rydberg gates.

Taiyi aims to complete its first full quantum computing system and demonstrate quantum error-corrected logical qubits by the end of the year. We don’t know a ton about them yet but it seems their setup uses around 1 watt of continuous laser power to coordinate roughly 1,000 active physical qubits inside a high-vacuum chamber. Where they see business utility is primarily in areas like AI simulation needs, including cryptographic security, chemical simulation and quantum machine learning.

With a team of nearly 50 researchers from MIT, JILA, and top Chinese universities, Taiyi Quantum looks legit. The reason I mention this is there’s some indication that emerging technologies are getting far more funding this year with a geopolitical and National defense concerns escalating in relevant National program urgency. Some experts and commentators are pointing out that the size of the raise is quite large compared to the relative newness of the startup — about six months old.

• Liu Hongbin — Co-founder and technical leader, previously a quantum architect at Microsoft Azure Quantum.

• Fang Zhenghao — Co-founder, bringing a background from the investment ecosystem.

Read more

Welcome Back,

While I wanted to cover IQM going public, an important Series A has arrived in 2026 out of the Quantum void, if you will.

I’ve always believed the Quantum industry would require fresh approaches to old challenges to make rapid progress. Oratomic (CalTech) a neutral atom quantum computing company that officially launched only this year, announced it has raised $300 million in its Series A. It has some unusual ideas on the future of Quantum.

Shor’s algorithm is possible with as few as 10,000 reconfigurable atomic qubits

Read the Paper

The Oratomic origin story is rooted in a massive technical breakthrough that fundamentally shifted the timeline for fault-tolerant quantum computing (FTQC). What if 1 million Qubits is not required?

Even the investors willing to bet such moonshot feel different this time around - Backers include a round Co-led by ARCH Venture Partners, Spark Capital, and Khosla Ventures—with a heavy-hitting roster including Bezos Expeditions, Index, General Catalyst, and Lowercarbon Capital—this round stands out because of the company's aggressive, non-traditional strategy.

The Technical Epiphany

For years, the consensus in the quantum world was that running Shor’s algorithm (the math that can crack modern public-key encryption) would require millions of physical qubits to overcome hardware errors. Because of this massive error-correction overhead, utility-scale quantum computing always felt decades away.

Oratomic’s founding team flipped that script. Led by prominent quantum researchers and physicists—including Dolev Bluvstein, Manuel Endres, Harry Levine, and Caltech professor John Preskill, along with CTO Hsin-Yuan (Robert) Huang—the founders published a paradigm-shifting paper on arXiv.

The Core Breakthrough: By leveraging high-rate quantum error-correcting codes, flexible logical instruction sets, and dynamic circuit architectures, they proved that Shor’s algorithm could be executed at cryptographically relevant scales with as few as 10,000 to 26,000 reconfigurable neutral-atom qubits, rather than millions.

The Race to Fault Tolerance

So then Oratomic is building both the hardware and software for a large-scale fault-tolerant machine.

Their unique bet? By physically moving the atoms during the execution of an ultra-efficient error-correction scheme, they project they can achieve full fault-tolerance with just 10,000 to 20,000 physical qubits.

The background looks legit: Led by Chief Executive Dolev Bluvstein, the company launched in late March this year (March, 2026) to build utility-scale quantum technology using neutral-atom technology in collaboration with scientists at the California Institute of Technology.

Given the academics of Quantum are evolving fast now in the mid to late 2020s, you need entirely new teams to make new bets on the future. While many of the companies and startups I’ve covered over the last few years are finally going public, a new batch of startups are on their way.

On Light and Atoms

“At Oratomic, we are building the world’s first utility-scale quantum computers, enabled by a new regime of ultra-efficient error correction–using only light and atoms.”

Madelyn Cain (left) and Dolev Bluvstein (right) asked themselves: What is the smallest quantum computer one could imagine creating that could hack something like a Bitcoin wallet?

View Website

$300 Million is quite a sizeable Series A round and they are skipping steps, they are going to solve the key problem. The company plans to use the capital to expand quantum hardware fabrication, deepen research into fault-tolerant architectures, and grow its physics and hardware engineering teams. This is a star studded team we are talking about.

Quick Summary

By leveraging high-rate quantum error-correcting codes, efficient logical instruction sets, and a modular zoned circuit design, the researchers capitalize on the unique physical reconfigurability of neutral-atom arrays. Under their proposed architecture, a system utilizing 26,000 physical qubits could crack discrete logarithms on the P-256 elliptic curve in just a few days, while factoring RSA-2048 integers would take roughly one to two months. Overall, these findings significantly accelerate the projected timeline for utility-scale fault-tolerant quantum computing and underscore the urgent need to transition to post-quantum encryption standards.

Cain has the Key 🗝️

Read more

I am supposed to be on a summer break, thinking less about emerging tech, geopolitics or the connections between Quantum and Space. This week President Donald Trump ordered a push on Monday to build a powerful quantum computer for ​scientific research and speed efforts to protect government systems from ‌related cyber threats. I have mixed feelings abou…

On Thursday of this week Quantinuum, that will be ticker $QNT begins to trade as a public company. I don’t even like the trapped-ion approach to scaling qubits and Quantum computers, but this becomes immediately the best pure-play group of Quantinuum's engineers with a public company.

Quantum’s inflection point occurs in the 2029 to 2032 period, but this is the beginning of when it’s taken more seriously.

It’s been just one week since the US government started actively investing in quantum computing to bolster national security and maintain global technological superiority. Backed by the CHIPS and Science Act, the Department of Commerce announced a $2 billion strategic initiative across nine domestic quantum companies.

In 2027 begins what I call the Machine Economy era and emerging technologies like Physical AI and Quantum become more important with space-technology as well. While robotics takes a long time to mature, the Semiconductor boom on public markets looks pretty extraordinary in 2026, especially the the bottleneck around HBM memory companies like SK Hynix, Micron and Samsung.

There are some subtle and not so subtle signs that Quantum’s importance will get more pronounced as National Defense and geopolitical uncertainty becomes a defining feature of the next decade.

For example, Foxconn said its quantum computing research is gaining international recognition, but the company expects commercialization to remain a few years away, with broader business opportunities emerging around 2030.

The Quantinuum IPO is the start of a new era for Quantum computing ramping up with hopefully a new batch of Quantum startups coming in 2027 and 2028 that are able to get more serious funding.

Enter Anderon

IBM’s Anderon is also a big deal, with $1 billion in planned funding to establish a new quantum foundry subsidiary for quantum-grade superconducting wafers by building on its U.S. leadership in superconducting quantum wafer fabrication technology.

Learn More

$QNT is set to begin trading on June 4th, 2026 and it really makes and all the rest of the Quantum SPACs look like meme stocks if you realize the research, logical qubit and talent behind this company. With the support of Honeywell, it’s way more than an ordinary Quantum computing startups.

The Quantum Hardware Era Begins

IBM announced it in May 2026 as a spun-off standalone company (initially a subsidiary) focused exclusively on quantum computing hardware manufacturing. It is headquartered in Albany, New York, and will operate a 300mm quantum wafer fab, offering manufacturing services to IBM and competing quantum hardware vendors.

The U.S. wants to accelerate quantum chip production and strengthen the U.S. quantum ecosystem by providing dedicated fabrication capacity (beyond IBM’s own needs). The most significant aspect of Anderon is that it is not an IBM-exclusive hardware facility. Instead, it operates on a open foundry model—very similar to how TSMC manufactures classical silicon chips for competing designers.

Notes on Quantinuum IPO

I really encourage you to read the S-1 yourself. If you are at all interested in the future of Quantum, it’s a must read:

Read the S-1 Yourself

• Supposed to be Raising $1B by offering 21.1M shares at $45–$50, implying a fully diluted market cap of ~$12.2B at the midpoint

• But as of last Friday, the IPO was reportedly oversubscribed by a double-digit multiple. So don’t be surprised if it’s over $100 on its first day/first week.

I will be doing a deep dive into it on my investing research Newsletter.

They are a full-stack company with likely a top three global team of Quantum researchers and engineers and Honeywell’s support. In post-IPO voting, I expect Honeywell to hold hold around 49.1% of the combined voting power. It’s definitely their baby.

Many believe that Quantinuum stands out as one of the strongest pure-play bets in quantum computing, positioned as a potential leader in the race toward fault-tolerant, commercially viable systems. I’m a little more skeptical of the trapped ion qubit approach as a whole - where trapped-ion quantum computing encodes qubits in the electronic or hyperfine energy states of charged atoms confined by electromagnetic (Paul) traps. Their tech is certainly a lot better than IonQ, who trade under and has been the best of the SPACs, in a rather lackluster Quantum lineup of public companies.

All respect to Xanadu or Infleqtion, but they are no Quantinuum.

Quantinuum uses trapped-ion technology, which generally offers superior fidelity and coherence times compared to superconducting approaches. They have Helios system (launched commercially ~late 2025): 98 physical qubits, 48 logical qubits, 99.921% two-qubit gate fidelity — among the highest reported. Their tech only gets half-decent in 2029. There’s a pretty high chance that there’s a meaningful breakthrough in another qubit approach by 2030.

They were founded the same year as Anthropic, that is, Quantinuum was formed in 2021 through the merger of Honeywell Quantum Solutions (hardware-focused) and Cambridge Quantum (software-focused). While Quantinuum is majority-owned by Honeywell, it does operate with significant independence.

• The company filed the S-1 on May 8, 2026 (preliminary prospectus dated that day).

• Quantinuum indicative price range of $45-50 with book currently ~2x oversubscribed, which is sort of rare in normal times - these aren’t normal times.

• At the high end of the range, the IPO implies a fully diluted valuation of roughly $12.7 billion (up from a $10 billion pre-money valuation in its September 2025 funding round). However we could see it with a market cap closer to $40 Billion in this AI boom market.

• Expected IPO Date: June 4, 2026. That’s this coming Thursday.

Net proceeds will primarily fund general corporate purposes through Quantinuum Holdings (R&D, operations, scaling hardware/software). As you might expect.

For me this is the biggest Quantum IPO in history and that counts for something:

Pre-Revenue IPOs for the Quantum Dream ✨

Technologies like robotics, quantum computing, space-technologies, and the end-game of Generative AI will take years to decades for us to see their full manifestation. It will take a lot of public companies, capital and years of innovation to get anywhere significant. Just like it’s taken autonomous vehicles or reusable rockets decades just to get off the ground. Some believe some aspects of recursive self-improving AI could accelerate these curves. It’s not clear how much compute exactly that would require and how seriously the impact might be. There are however AI chip design startups looking to do this - only a matter of time before Quantum hardware design goes the same route. By 2030 or 2035 we’ll have more data on the best qubit approach to seriously invest in, as for the 2020s it hasn’t been abundantly clear.

Their a fair chance that the approach Quantinuum has been taking is a dead-end. They are still functioning like a pre-revenue Quantum research lab for the most part although full-stack. Revenue is modest (e.g., ~$31M in 2025 per some reports; low double-digit millions recently). The company reports significant net losses (e.g., $192M+ annually, with heavy Q1 2026 burn).

Still, this is a real IPO, not a SPAC.

What they are able to raise from the public offering will stimulate the Quantum industry in a major way.

• Headquarters: Broomfield, Colorado, USA

• Core Backing: Honeywell as major shareholder; US government investment (part of $2 billion quantum initiative)

• Positioning: Full-stack quantum computing platform (hardware + software + applications)

• Hardware: Trapped Ion technology, representative systems H1/H2, 56 physical qubits, gate fidelity 99.95%+, industry-leading

• Software: Quantum algorithms, middleware, chemical simulation platform, serving drug development, materials science, finance, cybersecurity

• Software: Quantum algorithms, middleware, chemical simulation platform, serving drug development, materials science, finance, cybersecurity

• Net Loss: Approximately $136.6 million in 2025, still in high-investment R&D phase

• Technical Moat: Trapped Ion approach with globally leading fidelity, suited for high-precision computing

What the QCCD? 🧮

Read more

This week two separate Quantum stories really struck me and grabbed my focus. Can open-source LLMs spur Quantum forward? That’s what Nvidia is betting on with their Ising product.

Nvidia says this “open-source family of AI models” spans key quantum workloads, starting with Ising Calibration for automating the rapid tuning of quantum processors and Ising Decoding, which accelerates the real-time decoding required for quantum error correction.

On April 14, 2026 (World Quantum Day), NVIDIA officially launched Ising. Nvidia is betting that “AI is key for turning today’s quantum processors into large-scale, reliable computers.” We don’t know if this is actually true, but it’s an interesting concept. Nvidia is saying that their models empower developers to build high-performance AI while maintaining total control over their data and infrastructure.

We do know that Nvidia has built quite a lot of partners around Quantum and have invested in a lot of Open-source AI startups and are keen to build their own. Meanwhile, IonQ, ticker , literally the only half-way successful Quantum stock has been chosen by an important program by DARPA called HARQ.

IonQ was selected for DARPA’s HARQ program to develop architectures for networked quantum computers across multiple qubit types.

Both of these news items could be a big deal in Quantum coming out of its winter period. Totally ridiculous of course that IonQ is worthy nearly $16 Bn. on the public markets. IonQ barely makes any revenue to justify such a valuation. IonQ reported just $130 million in GAAP revenue for full-year 2025 (ended Dec 31, 2025), representing 202% year-over-year growth from $43 million in 2024. I’m not sure it has a going future, but DARPA idea to combine qubit types is the new fad. We have talked about this with regards to Google Quantum’s own dual-qubit strategy previously.

The HARQ program focuses on integrating trapped ions, neutral atoms, and superconducting qubits using photonic interconnects to improve scalability and performance. A unified qubit system that takes the benefits of each system together makes a lot of intuitive sense. Some systems scale better, while others are more stable.

I’ve been saying for a while that I thought LLMs could help leverage better Quantum computers and that Quantum computing and LLMs could eventually converge in ways that aren’t obvious yet.

Have a multi-qubit system and using AI to leverage Quantum actually should work together. Hopefully well funded Quantum companies like Quantinuum and SandboxAQ have their eyes on this, as well as the likes of Microsoft, IBM and others. Nvidia is putting it on thick:

Watch the Product Video

Read more

Good Morning,

Something has been nagging me, and it relates to this blog by Google. The world as we know it in terms of encryption and Bitcoin might not be safe soon. I think in a nutshell it’s safe to say that Google Quantum published a white paper about a week ago - showing they can break the 256-bit elliptic curve cryptography that secures most blockchains with roughly 20x fewer physical qubits than anyone previously thought possible.

That’s sort of a big deal!

Read the Paper

Will quantum computers crack cryptographic codes and cause a global security disaster? Agentic AI LLMs like Anthropic Mythos also could complicate the future of cybersecurity.

The rise of AI and autonomous agents is shifting the threat landscape, putting pressure on cybersecurity companies to keep up with more sophisticated attacks and tools that make hacking easier. They begin to mature around the same time as legit Quantum computers come online with enough qubits. This post-quantum cryptography (PQC) world of the 2030s is looking a bit weird.

Banks, governments and tech providers urged to upgrade security because current systems will soon be obsolete, but how to adjust?

Q-Day is why of course the theoretical future day when a quantum computer will have the capability to essentially break all cryptographic security, potentially creating a sort of hacking and identity theft armageddon.

One thing is for sure, the internet is about to get way more complicated in the 2030s.

Read more

It’s March, 2026 and Google Quantum’s roadmap is getting a lot more tangible. Google Quantum AI is broadening its quantum computing roadmap by introducing a neutral atom quantum computing programme alongside its established superconducting qubit research. This is of course validation for Neutral Atom approach to qubit development.

As you know in a nutshell, The Neutral Atom approach is a method of quantum computing that uses uncharged atoms—typically alkali metals like Rubidium or Cesium—as qubits. These atoms are suspended in a vacuum and manipulated using highly focused laser beams.

The elegance of this approach is that neutral atoms are not held by magnetic or electric fields, but rather by the "pressure" of light.

Which sounds almost poetic to me.

While Google’s Quantum unit is I think guilty of a lot of PR down the years, this is an interesting development signals to me that BigTech is taking Quantum computing and its future more seriously.

When Google Quantum acquired Atlantic Quantum back in October, 2025 I was a bit surprised.

Read the Blog

Additionally Google’s introducing a 2029 timeline to secure the quantum era with post-quantum cryptography (PQC) migration. Read their official blog on this too. Google Quantum appears to see superconducting technology as the main path forward with Neutral Atom Qubit approach as more “complementary”.

Why add neutral atoms now?

Google is pursuing a dual-modality strategy because the two approaches have complementary strengths that address different scaling challenges, for instance:

1. Superconducting qubits (Google’s core platform):

   Excel in the “time dimension” — fast gate/measurement cycles (~1 microsecond).

   Have demonstrated millions of gate/measurement cycles in deep circuits.

   Next challenge: scaling architectures to tens of thousands of qubits.

2. Neutral atom qubits (new addition):

   Excel in the “space dimension” — already scaled to arrays of ~10,000 qubits.

   Offer flexible any-to-any connectivity (no fixed wiring constraints), which enables more efficient algorithms and low-overhead error-correcting codes.

   Trade-off: slower cycle times (~milliseconds).

   Next challenge: demonstrating deep circuits with many sequential operations.

Quantum companies, startups and labs are notorious in making ambitious road-maps that don’t always turn into tangible Quantum breakthroughs and developments overall have been slow and shifting.

Quantum appears to be a bit of a sideshow as many BigTech companies including Nvidia, Amazon, Microsoft and Google. From their blog it’s clear that Google plans to develop the neutral atom platform through advances in error correction, simulation and hardware, while continuing its superconducting roadmap toward commercial systems by the end of the decade.

With Infleqtion going public, , and Google giving the Neutral Atom approach a bit more mainstream credibility it’s fascinating to watch.

The Big Three in Neutral Atom Approach

1. QuEra

2. Pasqual

3. Infleqtion

It’s safe to say that these are the big three, more or less in the right order. Important to note that Pasqual is indeed also rushing to go public via a SPAC. The company will combine with Bleichroeder Acquisition Corp. II, a vehicle set up by Michel Combes and Andrew Gundlach, at a $2 billion pre-money valuation. While getting about $200 million in the process. I don’t believe I’ve covered the French team before - Cofounded in 2019 by Nobel prize winner Alain Aspect, Pascal builds and operates neutral-atom quantum processors. It has more than 275 employees and raised over $200 million from investors.

QuEra on the other hand, appears to have a pretty high ceiling with some very solid research. Based in Boston, QuEra is widely considered the technical leader in "analog" quantum simulation, though they are pivotally moving toward fault-tolerant digital systems.

Google Quantum’s dual approach to building a full-stack approach to scaling Qubits could be more important than it seems.

Read more

As more speculative companies are going public in 2026 and 2027, Quantum computing companies have no choice but to join the event. It’s the year of science fiction IPOs and that means our share of SPACs.

IQM announced on February 23rd, 2026 that it would go public via a SPAC. The Finland Quantum startup will see a transaction that will value the company at an initial $1.8 billion valuation.

The Helsinki HQ company is an interesting one. IQM is one of the few companies globally that provides full-stack quantum systems, meaning they build everything from the quantum chips to the software interface. They also have some real revenue, about $35 million ARR in 2025.

That means they have some decent partnerships too such as: Strong commercial integrations with high-performance computing and enterprise platforms across the quantum/AI value chain such as NVIDIA, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, AWS, Toyo Corporation and Bechtle AG.

Europe’s strength in Quantum computing will be tested by the market. IQM Quantum Computers (often just called IQM) is a leading quantum computing company specializing in building full-stack superconducting quantum computers.

This article is a stub mostly about the breaking news.

BOOM. Europe produces its first publicly traded quantum champion.

Who knew it would be from Finland. 🇫🇮

Read more

One of the few things that gets me optimistic about the future of Quantum computing, are the new startups that get funding. In recent years U.K. Universities have been such a talent bed with some promising spin-outs.

In early December, 2025 we learned that the University of Cambridge spin-off developing photonic networking hardware designed to…

Read more

Good Morning,

I’m trying to analyze Google Quantum’s new PR with a level head. This is difficult to do given Google’s history of exaggerating its Quantum developments. Try to read it with a grain of salt: Google Quantum AI has reported a physics experiment that pushes quantum computing further into what researchers call the “beyond-classical” regime, where even the world’s most powerful supercomputers fail to keep up.

As it has many times before, Google has claimed a breakthrough in quantum computing after developing an algorithm that performed a task beyond the capabilities of conventional computers.

• The experiment used a new “Quantum Echoes” algorithm to measure interference effects called OTOC(2), revealing quantum behavior that classical machines cannot efficiently reproduce.

• It represents the first demonstration of a verifiable quantum advantage, where a quantum computer performs a practical, repeatable calculation that surpasses the capabilities of the world’s fastest classical supercomputers—specifically, running up to 13,000 times faster for certain tasks. The algorithm focuses on measuring subtle quantum interference effects in chaotic systems, enabling more precise modeling of real-world quantum phenomena like molecular interactions.

This as the Trump Administration has hinted at maybe taking a stake in the three “major” Quantum computing startups that are public companies. In yet another pump and dump by Trump and his associates, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration is in talks about taking equity stakes in quantum computing firms in exchange for federal funding.

In a paper published in Nature, the team describes using its 65-qubit superconducting processor to measure a subtle quantum interference phenomenon called the second-order out-of-time-order correlator, or OTOC(2).

Read the paper: Full title is: “Observation of constructive interference at the edge of quantum ergodicity”

Observation of quantum ergodicity

How It Works

Read more

And in the news:

The Quantum winter is so bad consolidation has begun. I don’t know how I feel about this: Google Quantum AI has acquired Atlantic Quantum, an MIT-founded startup developing superconducting quantum hardware, to accelerate progress toward error-corrected quantum computers.

“We’re excited to announce Atlantic Quantum, an MIT-founded startup, is joining Google Quantum AI. Their work on integrated quantum hardware will accelerate our roadmap toward building a large scale error-corrected quantum computer” - Google Quantum aI

Honestly BigTech swallowing Quantum startup is bad news for the sector. At a time when IonQ is trading like a meme stock with barely any revenue what’s the incredible future we were talking about again?

BigTech to eat their lunch? This doesn’t make Google a leader in Quantum though, Google Quantum AI, which was founded in 2012, is on a mission to build quantum computers to solve otherwise unsolvable problems spun out Sandbox AQ, that has gotten so much funding. Google’s Willow chip PR was also underwhelming as compared to the reality.

Still I guess they want to grow: Atlantic Quantum’s modular chip stack combines qubits with superconducting control electronics in cold-stage systems. In theory, the acquisition aims to scale Google’s superconducting qubit hardware following recent Willow chip progress.

“Founded in 2012, Google Quantum AI has pursued a roadmap centered on superconducting qubits, with milestones including the 2019 “quantum supremacy” experiment and the recently introduced Willow chip.”

Read more

It’s game time for some Quantum computing startups, Infleqution formally called ColdQuanta, is going public, well in a manner of speaking! As Quantum SPACs of the past are behaving like meme stocks, it seems this team wants to get in on the fun!

I have very mixed feelings about this! As I’ll go over today. Churchill Capital Corp X.

Quantum computing and sensing markets expected to exceed $160 billion in aggregate by 2040, spanning artificial intelligence, defense, energy, space, materials science, and financial services.

SPACs have grifted millions of retail investors over the course of the last half decade or so, typically it’s a fast-track for low quality companies to go public. Typically these companies are speculative and aren’t making much money! The team announced a new CTO, Pranav Gokhale.

Let me refresh your memory - Infleqtion, a Boulder, Colorado-based quantum technology company, specializes in developing and commercializing neutral atom-based quantum technologies.

At least they have a nice ticker: $INFQ - so Infleqtion has entered into a definitive business combination agreement with Churchill Capital Corp X, valuing the quantum technology company at $1.8 billion and positioning it to go public under the ticker “INFQ.” Given the meme-stock nature of the stock market lately in late 2025, this is interesting timing.

Let’s remind ourselves just what is at stake here exactly:

Read more

I hope you had a good summer, this Newsletter is back to its normal cadence. There have been several Quantum startup funding rounds (during the last few weeks) I’d like to track and catch up on. Honeywell spin-out Quantinuum certainly is among those I’m most bullish about (a list that has been whittled down considerably in the past couple of years) in the current Quantum winter.

Honeywell confirmed Quantinuum has raised $600 million in equity funding at a pre-money valuation of $10 billion. This is a Quantum startup I’m dying to go IPO. The current Quantum startups that are public, are very underwhelming inspite of their meme like stock actions.

Read the Blog

Quantinuum uses trapped-ion QCCD (Quantum Charge-Coupled Device) architecture for its qubits, achieving high fidelities and all-to-all connectivity.

I won’t say this is the best approach to Qubits, but for scale it’s certainly an approach to watch.

The valuation is certainly interesting and ambitious: at a pre-money equity valuation of $10 billion! Perhaps what I like the most about it is that Nvidia participated. The round was announced on September 4, 2025, and included new investors such as Quanta Computer, NVentures (NVIDIA’s venture capital arm), QED Investors, MESH, and Korea Investment Partners, alongside reinvestments from existing shareholders like JPMorgan Chase, Mitsui & Co., Amgen, Cambridge Quantum Holdings, Serendipity Capital, and Honeywell, which remains the majority shareholder.

NVIDIA’s venture capital arm does their due diligence fairly well as I have witnessed over the last three years related to AI chip and Generative AI startups. So there’s that!

The other notable thing is there’s a lot of new investors: New investors including Quanta Computer (Taiwan), NVentures, and QED Investors joined existing backers such as JPMorgan, Mitsui, Amgen, and Honeywell, with Honeywell and Cambridge Quantum remaining the largest shareholders.

Nvidia and Quantinuum

In 2022, Quantinuum became the first company to bring Nvidia’s CUDA-Q to its Quantum systems, establishing a pioneering collaboration with Nvidia.

The round also includes participation from new investors MESH and Korea Investment Partners.

Quantinuum continues increasing its commercial momentum and earning global recognition. The company will work with NVIDIA as a founding collaborator on breakthroughs at the NVIDIA Accelerated Quantum Research Center.

This gives Quantinuum (that already had) a bit more added credibility.

Towards Helios 🔆

This capital raise will support Quantinuum’s advancement of quantum computing at scale, which includes continued progress toward the upcoming launch of Helios, the company’s next generation quantum computing system that is expected to launch this year. It will also support Quantinuum’s path to becoming the first to perform universal fault-tolerant computing.

Subscribe now

Read more

In the past week Quantum stocks have gone parabolic beyond all sense or reason.

• D-Wave is up 72% so far in 2025.

• IonQ is up volatile as all heck, somehow at a $10 Billion valuation.

• Quantum stocks behaving like meme penny stocks is not reassuring.

None of which are founded on fundamentals. If you want to invest in Quantum: Honeywell, IBM, and Quantinuum when they go public make more sense to me.

Meanwhile formerly called ColdQuanta, Infleqtion got more funding.

Subscribe now

Read more

Jensen Huang says quantum computing is far off from being mainstream, but Nvidia seems ready to invest.

Just a little note on Nvidia’s efforts in Quantum. This is a short note for investors.

PsiQuantum is the biggest Quantum semiconductor moonshot company having raised over $1.7 billion and achieving a valuation of $6 billion as of March 2025.

PsiQuantum employs a photonics-based approach called "fusion-based quantum computing" (FBQC). This method utilizes individual photons as qubits and relies on well-established optical technology, though it requires precise manufacturing to scale up.

Nvidia investing in PsiQuantum could deliver a stock market hybe bubble for Quantum computing that could significantly move the needle. This is because Nvidia is on pace to become the most valuable company in the world dominating the AI chip market. Since they are also focusing on Quantum’s capabilities it has profound consequences for the Quantum computing nascent industry.

A Black Rock Party

NVIDIA is reportedly in advanced talks to invest in PsiQuantum as part of a $750 million funding round led by BlackRock, marking its first direct investment in quantum hardware and potentially valuing the company at nearly $6 billion.

Usually this wouldn’t be news but because of the size of the bet of PsiQuantum and the fame of Nvidia, will make many onlookers starting to notice.

The deal would mark Nvidia’s first investment in a company focused on building physical quantum computers. Nvidia is looking into Quantum hybrid datacenters in its partnerships with TSMC, Taiwan and major winners of the Quantum chip race.

Nvidia investing in PsiQuantum and Quantinuum going IPO are the two major events of consequences I see that could rally the Quantum industry into a more hyped and mainstream category. Infleqtion, SandboxAQ, Quantum Machines and others need to think about going IPO too. The timing by around 2026-2028will be right for a Quantum stock rally that makes today’s figures look well, normal. Currently the bell-weather stock for Quantum is . As you might know, it’s up 295% in the last year.

Unlike other startups, PsiQuantum employs conventional semiconductor manufacturing techniques and works with governments in Australia and the United States to develop quantum computers in Brisbane and Chicago. - Reuters

Nvidia’s support for PsiQuantum could not just help bridge the gap between theoretical advancements and practical implementation, but mean Quantum stocks become even more elevated leading to an IPO goldrush for the best Quantum startups. This is inevitable, it’s just a question of timing. This is the best thing the VC community around the Quantum industry can do to keep capital flowing into the space and push innovation forwards.

The U.S. stock market is an accelerator, and Nvidia understand this full well now as of 2025. Whatever you make of PsiQuantum, they are a big bet for a nascent industry. A $750 million round for a Quantum startup is not just rare, it’s pretty much unheard of.

Subscribe now

Read more

Classiq has really put Israel on the map in Quantum software, do remember back in the day Microsoft was a major backer of Classiq and is among its most likely M&A destinations.

Classiq has built a software platform to facilitate programming for quantum computers

Classiq has raised $110 million in Series C funding, reportedly the largest ever for a quantum software company, bringing its total funding to $173 million.

Classiq has a very diverse group of investors at it has matured as one of the key Quantum startups in Israel. The financing round was led by global venture capital fund Entrée Capital, with participation from Norwest, NightDragon, Hamilton Lane, Clal, Neva SGR, Phoenix, Team8, IN Venture, Wing, HSBC, Samsung Next and QBeat.

In the words of CEO and co-founder Nir Minerbi, Classiq is building “the Microsoft of quantum computing” – the software stack that powers real-world quantum applications. Calling yourself the Microsoft of Quantum really does sound good on paper, even if real Quantum computers don’t exist yet with millions of qubits to be truly useful.

That’s not to say that their partnerships aren’t growing however; Citi, BMW Group, and Deloitte are just a few organizations that depend on them, and Classiq is deeply embedded across hundreds of global academic institutions.

🚀 Quantum Coding Just Leveled Up

Classiq was founded in December, 2019 (2020 on many websites) so they are developing well for being just five years old. The company plans to scale its commercial and R&D operations globally, positioning itself as a foundational player in the quantum ecosystem with customers with increasing partnerships.

Founded by CEO Nir Minerbi, CTO Yehuda Naveh and his son CPO Amir Naveh, Classiq has developed a software operating platform that works across all major types of quantum hardware. The platform is tailored to help data scientists, computational scientists, and engineers work on quantum algorithms and build programs and applications with high-performance computational power that hold the promise of speeding up solutions to today’s most complex real-world problems.

The startup also had 2022 backing from the likes of the current Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, Hewlett Packard Pathfinder, the venture capital program of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE); Phoenix, a $60-billion insurance company; Spike Ventures, a Stanford alumni investor group; and Samsung NEXT, the investment arm of Samsung are new investors in the company. So there aren’t just Microsoft connections here there are many others as well.

Classiq’s backers have a lot of interesting things to say about the startup.

Classiq has a very Diversified List of Backers

If you curious to look up the backers on LinkedIn this may help: Entrée Capital, Norwest, NightDragon, Hamilton Lane, Clal, NEVA SGR, Phoenix, Team8, IN Venture, Wing Venture Capital, HSBC, A&E Investments, Samsung Next, OurCrowd, Qbeat Ventures, and others.

Israeli entrepreneurs of course are skilled at sales and Nir is positioning Classiq as a great Quantum acquisition target in the years ahead, or to go public.

“We are building the Microsoft of quantum computing – a software layer that powers the next generation of quantum applications, just as Microsoft did for classical computing,” said Classiq’s Minerbi.

Classiq is really well known to Quantum developers and thus have quite an active community. The company says its platform provides advantages such as accelerated onboarding, enabling developers and data scientists get to grips with quantum computing much faster than they otherwise would.

Classiq in a Nutshell

The platform simplifies the creation and design of complex quantum circuits and is geared to allow businesses and organizations without in-house quantum experts to build quantum applications that can resolve complex calculations in areas such as the automotive industry, automation, finance, and drug discovery in the pharmaceutical industry.

• Automotive industry

• Automation

• Finance

• Drug Discovery

• Pharma

Curiously a lot of Classiq’s best partners are in the Automotive industry at present. Classiq is also smaller and leaner than I had imagined. Classiq, which employs 65 people, plans to double its workforce over the coming year.

Subscribe now

Read more

I cover emerging tech, sometimes called deep tech in Europe. Recently there was a Series B that really caught my attention. Let’s note right now: UbiQD^® is pronounced 'ubiquity'.

UbiQD^® a so-called global leader in quantum dot (QD) technology, announced on April 22nd, 2025 that it closed a $20 million Series B financing round.

What they are trying to do…

Read more

Hello Everyone,

There are times where I really want to write about science news on this channel. While I’m obsessed with emerging tech, the exoplanet aspect of astronomy is seriously fascinating for our civilization’s progress.

Recently K2-18b, located 124 light-years from Earth, could be a Hycean world: a potentially habitable planet entirely covered i…

Read more

Welcome Back,

Sometimes you can tell signs about an industry by some of the smaller investments, moves, funding and research announcements. Let’s see if that holds true in early 2025.

Lately BTQ out of Vancouver has acquired a stake in QPerfect. BTQ Technologies claims to be a quantum technology company and provides things like quantum security, verifiable scripting, hardware acceleration, and post-quantum blockchain scaling solution, as well as combines software and hardware to safeguard assets with post-quantum services and solutions.

The stake is €2 million in QPerfect, a French deeptech company specializing in neutral atom quantum computing and design automation. The proposed investment grants BTQ a 16.67% equity stake, with an option to acquire full ownership within 12 months.

Subscribe now

Read more

This week Chinese state media had a report about using Origin Quantum’s Wukong in Generative AI. Is this the first signs of legit AQ or just a publicity stunt?

If true, this is super relevant to the AQ era we sometimes talk about on this Newsletter.

On April 7th, it is claimed Chinese scientists successfully conducted the world's first fine-tuning task of a billion-parameter artificial intelligence (AI) large model on China's independently developed third-generation superconducting quantum computer named Origin Wukong.

Will Chinese LLM model efficiency extend to using Quantum computers? DeepSeek has conducted a lot of hardware and software experiments, but this is totally different.

A team of scientists and engineers in Hefei, Anhui province, recently used a quantum computer to fine-tune a billion-parameter AI model-marking a world-first achievement in AQ.

AQ stands for the intersection of AI and quantum computing technologies. Some analysts believe that when we have Quantum computers with millions of qubits it will open up new AI architectures well beyond the LLMs of today. Many hope that time is just around the corner, in the 2030s. It’s too soon to say if that is going to be a reality, it could be in the 5 to 15 year range most likely.

In a new report, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute says China is outpacing the US in 37 out of 44 critical technology research areas.

Read the Report

In a new report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), the US comes second to China in the majority of critical technology research areas examined, like artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology and quantum technology and specifically in defense and space-related technologies. Source: Breaking Defense.

Subscribe now

Read more