HQ News & Events

Welcome to the latest edition of "Quantum Leap" where The Fly decodes news and activity in the quantum computing space.$10B INVESTMENT:In a regulatory filing, IBM disclosed plans to invest more than $10B over five years to advance its position in quantum, including in R&D, capex, ecosystem partnerships, manufacturing scaling, and M&A. The company said this further enhances its confidence in delivering the first large-scale fault-tolerant quantum computer by 2029. The company said, "To date, IBM has deployed over 90 quantum systems, including more quantum computers than reported by all other industry players combined. The company has also built a global client and partner ecosystem spanning more than 325 Fortune 500 companies, startups, universities, and government agencies already using IBM's global fleet of quantum computers to tackle scientific challenges across chemistry, biology, materials science, and more. This $10B investment announcement follows last week's Letter of Intent between IBM and the Department of Commerce to build an American quantum chip foundry to accelerate American quantum innovation."QUOBLY INVESTMENT:Sealsqannounced its participation as a lead investor in Quobly's EUR 130M Series A financing. The round is led by ST Microelectronics, Sealsq, Isalt and the French Public Investment Bank.M&A:Sealsq reported the acquisition of 100% of Miraex, a developer of photonics-based quantum interconnect solutions headquartered at the EPFL Innovation Park in Ecublens, Switzerland. As part of this strategic transaction, Sealsq has acquired entire issued share capital of Miraex. The investment has been made using the company's quantum fund. The quantum fund has total approved capital resources of $200M, of which over $65M has already been deployed in several projects. Carlos Moreira, chairman and CEO, Sealsq noted, "Today's closing of the Miraex acquisition marks a watershed moment for Sealsq and for the broader quantum ecosystem. We have spent years assembling the assets required to deliver a truly sovereign, end-to-end quantum architecture, one that begins at the silicon level with our post-quantum chips and ASICs, extends through quantum processor hardware, passes through Miraex's photonic interconnect layer, and ultimately reaches orbit through our Quantum Orbital Space Cloud. With Miraex now fully integrated, the Quantum Sovereign Vertical Stack is complete. The quantum internet is no longer a theoretical construct, for Sealsq, it is a buildable, deployable roadmap that we can now begin to execute with customers, partners, and governments. We are grateful to the Miraex team for their vision and their extraordinary technical contributions, and we are proud to welcome them into the Sealsq family as we focus on converting this unique strategic position into long-term value for our shareholders." Additionally, Sealsq announced that it has acquired a majority equity stake in Wecan Group, following an initial 28% investment made one year ago. As part of this strategic transaction, Sealsq will invest CHF 5M to accelerate Wecan Group's development and support the deployment of next-generation compliance Co-Pilote and post-quantum financial security solutions for the global financial industry. The investment has been made using the company's quantum fund.PURCHASE ORDER:Qtrex Quantumreceived a purchase order from a multinational company for an AME system and related materials. The customer is headquartered in the United States, and the AME system will be delivered to one of the customer's sites outside the United States.ROADMAP:D-Wave Quantumunveiled a new gate-model roadmap designed to accelerate the development of commercial, fault-tolerant quantum computing. Targeting 100 logical qubits capable of successfully performing over one million operations by 2032, the roadmap combines D-Wave's expertise in dual-rail qubits and quantum error correction, with its ability to engineer, scale and commercialize superconducting quantum systems.REVISED REGISTRATION STATEMENT:Quantinuumhas filed a revised registration statement on Form S-1 with the U.S. SEC relating to a proposed initial public offering of shares of its Class A common stock. Quantinuum is now offering 26.5M shares of Class A common stock and anticipates that the initial public offering price per share of its Class A common stock will be between $53.00 and $55.00. Previously, Quantinuum expected to offer 21.05M shares in a price range of $45.00-$50.00. The company intends to apply to list its Class A common stock on Nasdaq under the symbol. JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley are acting as joint lead active book-running managers for the proposed offering. Jefferies and Evercore ISI are also acting as active book-running managers.PRIVATE PLACEMENT:Qtrex Quantum entered into a securities purchase agreement with a new fundamental institutional investor for the purchase and sale of 6.667M ordinary shares in a private placement. The gross proceeds from the offering are expected to be approximately $10M, before deducting placement agent fees and other estimated offering expenses. The closing of the offering is expected to occur on or about June 1, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. The company expects to use the net proceeds from the offering for working capital and general corporate purposes. Alliance Global Partners is acting as sole placement agent for the offering.OXFORD HUB:Infleqtionannounced an expansion of its UK quantum operations with the launch of a new quantum innovation center in Oxford. The center will serve as a hub for quantum research, manufacturing, and systems integration. Infleqtion delivered the UK's first operational 100-physical-qubit quantum computer to the National Quantum Computing Centre at Harwell. Infleqtion has also conducted Royal Navy sea trials of its Tiqker optical atomic clock aboard the MOD's Excalibur autonomous submarine, with additional trials planned for its quantum inertial navigation technology. Additional UK programs include an Innovate UK-funded quantum RF sensing initiative and a funded contract to deliver the UK's first optical atomic clock. The UK quantum innovation center will occupy a dedicated facility at Oxford Technology Park, tripling the size of Infleqtion's research, production, and systems integration capabilities.ANALYST COMMENTARY:Needham initiated coverage of Horizon Quantumwith a Buy rating and $20 price target. Horizon is a quantum software company focused on building a platform that makes programming a quantum computer as intuitive as a classical system, the analyst told  investors in a research note. Needham believes that as the quantum industry approaches commercial advantage, a platform layer will be required to fully unlock the ecosystem's value. It believes Horizon Quantum has a first-mover advantage in quantum software infrastructure.Roth Capital raised the firm's price target on D-Wave Quantum to $40 from $30 and keeps a Buy rating on the shares. The company's first investor analyst day was very well attended, and the management was very confident of its quantum computing competitive position and growth opportunity, the analyst noted. D-Wave Quantum management emphasized the company's competitive differentiation in the form of demonstrated enterprise engagement and hardware sales reflecting an emphasis of adding commercial value and supporting superior customer outcomes, the firm added.

"Rapid advancement in quantum computing hardware coupled with recent breakthroughs in error correction may suggest the field is reaching an inflection point, with quantum advantage drawing nearer. We believe that the successful completion of our business combination with dMY Squared Technology Group, Inc., will allow us to significantly accelerate progress in building the software infrastructure to power quantum applications. We anticipate that the business combination has provided us with the financial runway required to support our strategic priorities for the foreseeable future, while enabling increased investments in R&D, allowing us to advance our integrated development environment, Triple Alpha, and push towards quantum advantage with the extension of our testbed. Together, we believe these initiatives will significantly strengthen our ability to unlock the full potential of quantum computing, positioning us to develop and grow revenue as the industry drives towards quantum advantage," said Horizon Quantum CEO and Founder Dr. Joe Fitzsimons.

Welcome to the latest edition of "Quantum Leap" where The Fly decodes news and activity in the quantum computing space.ISING:Nvidiaannounced the world's first family of open-source quantum AI models, Nvidia Ising, designed to help researchers and enterprises build quantum processors capable of running useful applications. Named after a landmark mathematical model that dramatically simplified the understanding of complex physical systems, the Nvidia Ising family provides high-performance, scalable AI tools for quantum error correction and calibration - two of the most critical challenges in building hybrid-quantum classical systems. Ising models run the world's best quantum processor calibration and enable researchers to tackle much larger, more complex problems with quantum computers by delivering up to 2.5 times faster performance and 3 times higher accuracy for the decoding process needed for quantum error correction, the company said. Nvidia added that Nvidia Ising complements the Nvidia CUDA-Q software platform for hybrid quantum-classical computing and integrates with the Nvidia NVQLink QPU-GPU hardware interconnect for real-time control and quantum error correction, providing researchers and developers with a full suite of tools needed to "turn today's qubits into tomorrow's accelerated quantum supercomputers."HARDWARE-SOFTWARE INTEGRATION:Horizon Quantum Computingand AQT announced a strategic collaboration to advance the development of quantum computing applications via increased hardware-software integration. By combining advanced hardware capabilities with scalable software infrastructure, the two companies aim to accelerate users' ability to build real-world quantum applications. "AQT's trapped ion systems provide low error rates and long coherence times, potentially increasing the scalability and reliability of quantum computing," said Horizon Quantum CEO Joe Fitzsimons. "Through this collaboration, Triple Alpha users will gain access to AQT's processors, expanding their options for cutting-edge hardware designed to solve difficult computational problems."IONQ LATEST:IonQhas achieved a technical milestone by photonically interconnecting two independent trapped-ion quantum systems. This marks the first demonstration of connected, commercial quantum computers. The company said, "By successfully linking two remote quantum systems, IonQ has validated the generation, transmission, and detection of photons used to enable quantum entanglement between two commercial IonQ computers at a distance for the first time. This major commercial result reinforces prior lab demonstrations and the theory of using photonic links to interconnect separated trapped-ion platforms while preserving the coherence necessary for advanced quantum operations."Additionally, IonQ has been awarded a contract in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Heterogeneous Architectures for Quantum program. As a part of HARQ, IonQ plays a role in enabling a new class of networked quantum computers that combine qubit types-such as trapped ions, neutral atoms, and/or superconducting qubits-into an interconnected architecture. Lastly, IonQ and the University of Maryland announced a multi-year expansion of their partnership through the National Quantum Laboratory, or QLab, extending their joint efforts in quantum computing, quantum networking, and workforce development. This latest agreement, totaling $7.5M and supported by funding from the State of Maryland's Capital of Quantum Initiative via the University of Maryland Economic Development Corporation, builds on the partnership first announced in September 2024. The largest component of the agreement supports deployment of a quantum memory node for advanced networking capabilities. This hardware enables UMD to develop, build, and test new applications and use-cases directly on top of IonQ's quantum networking and interconnect platform. IonQ will provide additional quantum compute resources, broadening access to IonQ systems to meet demand from UMD researchers and students. The collaboration boosts applied research efforts through directed projects, including work on quantum machine learning and holographic error-correcting codes. IonQ and UMD will jointly develop a specialized laser system supporting more advanced quantum algorithms and new experiments in quantum thermodynamics. "Our longstanding partnership with the University of Maryland meets the need to accelerate access to advanced quantum computing, quantum networking capabilities, and talent development," said Niccolo de Masi, chairman and CEO of IonQ. "IonQ's collaboration with UMD reflects our commitment to Maryland's 'Capital of Quantum' initiative, as we broaden QLab to include quantum networking, hardware upgrades, and deeper collaboration with its researchers."PILOT PROGRAM:WISeKeyand post-quantum technology subsidiary Sealsq, announced the completion of a pilot phase in their strategic partnership with the Space Command of the Swiss Armed Forces. The collaboration has focused on evaluating technical and operational building blocks relevant to a future Swiss sovereign and quantum-resilient space communications infrastructure. During this pilot phase, WISeSat, Sealsq and their partners conducted satellite missions, payload integration work and secure communications testing designed to assess architecture options, operational concepts and future government and defense use cases. The program has provided technical validation and lessons for the next stage of development, according to the company.QUANTUM HARDWARE UPGRADE:Infleqtionis providing upgraded quantum hardware to the International Space Station via NASA's Northrop Grumman-24cargo mission. The upgraded physics package for the Cold Atom Laboratory, developed in collaboration with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, may enable record-breaking in-orbit atom populations, record ultracold temperatures, and facilitate creation and study of simultaneous dual-species quantum gases. The company said these advances could unlock new experimental capabilities with the potential to improve navigation, strengthen Earth monitoring, and support critical infrastructure resilience.ORDER:Horizon Quantum and IonQ announced a strategic agreement. Horizon Quantum will purchase one of IonQ's first sixth-generation, chip-based 256-qubit trapped-ion systems.ANALYST COMMENTARY:Citi initiated coverage of Infleqtion with a Buy rating and $20 price target. The overlap between quantum sensing and quantum computing has allowed Infleqtion to generate revenue and evolve as a company, all the while advancing its technology, as the market for quantum computing develops and scales, the analyst told investors in a research note. Infleqtion's ongoing partnership with Nvidiais a key validation of technology and suggests their software solutions are well positioned to address current AI use cases as well as future AI and quantum applications, the firm added.BTIG initiated coverage of Infleqtion with a Buy rating and $22 price target. The firm said Infleqtion is one of few public quantum compute companies generating revenue today from its neutral atom platform. The platform addresses both the $130B quantum computing and $30B quantum sensing industries, the analyst noted. BTIG sees the company's as early-stage with a "highly competitive computing platform available at a significant discount to less technically advanced peers."