SandboxAQ is still a Google Moonshot

More funding for those National security linked Quantum startups with BigTech affiliations.

Hey Everyone,

You can tell a lot about what a tech startup is about in what they say before a big funding round. Let’s talk about SandboxAQ.

SandboxAQ said nicely is an enterprise SaaS company delivering AI and quantum tech (AQ) solutions for large enterprises in banking, biopharma, government, and other sectors. It has one foot in the past and one foot in the future. But make no mistake, it is a Google spun and backed Moon shot. Eric Schmidt is a driving force behind the startup.

The spinout from Google parent company Alphabet is reportedly seeking to raise another round that would value it at $5 billion, sources tell Bloomberg. Literally in an environment where the real Google is likely to begin a legal battle where the DOJ wants to break it up.

SandboxAQ has been trying to get attention on its LQMs, or large quantitative models. They are framing this as a way for emerging technology to tackle the likes of drug development and the usual biotech and healthcare use-cases. SandboxAQ began as Alphabet’s moonshot AI quantum computing unit led by Jack Hidary, also known as a longtime X Prize board member. How much has actually changed? They are able to raise even bigger funding rounds than is accessible to most Quantum startups that are independent.

On what revenue is your valuation supposed to be $4 or $5 billion? Google is even investing in QuEra. Is BigTech going to consolidate the fragments of Quantum’s startup scene of today in the near future? It seems just as is happening in Generative AI, that this indeed will be the case.

I get it, big sprawling companies like IBM, Microsoft and Google want to own part of that Quantum future. Meanwhile, overdue and out of date, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed court papers that say it is considering enforcing “structural remedies” that would prevent Google from using some of its products such as Chrome, Android and Play, which the DoJ argues give the company an advantage over rivals.

So what’s the pattern here?

The company appears to focus on quantum physics-driven software solutions for sectors like healthcare, navigation, and cybersecurity, but is not building quantum computers. They are building products essentially before real Quantumc omputers that are scalable actually exist. Preparing for a time when future AI architectures merge with the computing capabilities of Quantum, i.e. “AQ”.

It was in March, 2022 that we heard about how Google parent company Alphabet revealed that its Sandbox division, which focuses on quantum computing technologies, is being spun off into an independent company called SandboxAQ. It’s still not totally clear what the end-game is or how they will generate the majority of their revenue.

A lot of its current funding is from the Tycoon generation of people like Eric Schmidt, Marc Benioff, Jim Breyer and so forth. Schmidt — a former Google CEO whose net worth is $32.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index — is chairman of SandboxAQ and is also involved in altering American policy to become more strategic in how it handles China, some of whose projects are controversial in my opinion.

Of course not many real journalists actually cover SandboxAQ or antitrust in the Quantum computing startups scene, as so much of the funding and money actually comes from Government contracts, innovation funding and even partnerships with National security and Big Pharma.

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