Trump administration buys into quantum computing
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Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
The U.S. government on Thursday said that it has agreed to take equity stakes in nine quantum computing companies, tied to $2 billion in CHIPS Act grants.
Why it matters: These sorts of quasi-socialist arrangements have been normalized with breathtaking speed.
- You might expect them from a President Mamdani, not from a nominally conservative Republican like President Trump.
The big picture: The U.S. Commerce Department hopes these deals will help develop a domestic supply chain for quantum chips.
Zoom in: Half the grant money would go to IBM, staking a new quantum chip foundry called Anderon.
- GlobalFoundaries would get another $375 million.
- Three other publicly traded companies — D-Wave Quantum, Rigetti Computing and Infleqtion — each would receive $100 million. Shares of each were up sharply on the news.
The remaining companies are VC-backed startups: Quantinuum (which is in IPO registration), PsiQuantum, Atom Computing, and Diraq. Each receives $100 million except for Diraq ($38 million).
Behind the scenes: A senior Commerce official told The Wall Street Journal that the agency "did so many different deals to spread out its bets, acknowledging that it could take years for them to pan out."
