It seems a week can’t go by without news of a quantum computing company gaining new funding, and this week’s news has an interesting wrinkle: IBM, which makes quantum hardware systems and quantum processor units (QPUs) has invested in and is working jointly with Quantinuum, which also makes quantum computers and QPUs.
Financial terms of the investment were not disclosed, but Capacity Media speculated it could be in the realm of $25 million.
The companies described the investment as a bid to help the growth and health of the overall quantum computing ecosystem, an ecosystem which increasingly will include quantum computing hubs enabled by different companies, but networked together to increase their computing power, utility and value.
The move is more about Cambridge Quantum Computing, the U.K. company that was combined with Honeywell’s quantum solutions group to form Quantinuum, a firm in which Honeywell holds a majority stake. Cambridge Quantum worked with IBM for several years before the merger as a member of IBM’s Q network. IBM also invested in Cambridge Quantum last year, prior to the closing of the Quantinuum deal, which is why some published reports this week described the new investment as an expansion of an existing investment.
In other quantum computing news this week, IonQ said its new Aria quantum system, which is still in private beta, achieved a record 20 algorithmic qubits (#AQ), an application-oriented metric that IonQ itself first proposed in 2020. The company said #AQ is an effort to evaluate quantum computers’ “utility in real-world settings.” Fierce Electronics has updated this story with comments from IonQ President and CEO Peter Chapman since it first appeared.
Also on the quantum front this week, Quantum Machines announced a pulse processor unit that it said brings quantum computing closer to real-time error correction, one of the sector’s biggest hurdles to future growth. Fierce Electronics covered Quantum Machines last fall when the company raised $50 million in funding.
Elsewhere in the quantum sector this week, Quantum Computing, Inc. (QCI) announced a marketing partnership with QPhoton, Inc., a move which will see QCI’s Qatalyst quantum software solution integrated with QPhoton’s advanced photonic quantum technologies for its application to QCI-specific solutions. The companies expect that joint quantum solutions that result from the partnership, including quantum sensors, quantum processors and quantum software, will be ready for demonstration by the fourth quarter this year.
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