US government takes $2 billion equity stake in nine quantum computing firms
The US Commerce Department announced that, as a strategic positioning move in the quantum computing market, it will directly buy equity stakes in nine companies. The roughly $2 billion in total investment, made under the CHIPS and Science Act, represents the federal government's largest single quantum-sector investment to date. The announcement came at a White House press conference.
The firms receiving the equity stakes do not include independent units of IBM and Google (IBM Quantum and Google Quantum AI) — those firms already carry sufficient private capital. Instead, small and mid-size US quantum companies have been selected: IonQ, Quantinuum, Rigetti Computing, PsiQuantum, Atom Computing, QuEra Computing, Diraq, Quantum Brilliance and Photonic Inc. Two of the firms (Photonic Inc. and Quantum Brilliance) are headquartered in Canada but were chosen because of the density of their US operations.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said at the briefing: 'Quantum computing technology will be a foundation of national security, economic competitiveness and scientific leadership for the next ten years. This investment is designed to keep the United States ahead in the global quantum race.' Raimondo emphasised that, rather than traditional grant funding, the investment takes the form of 'direct equity' — the federal government becomes a shareholder in each of these companies.
The direct-equity model is an unusual step for the US federal government. Traditional CHIPS Act funds are largely distributed as grants or low-interest loans, while the equity model places the state as a shareholder. That means the federal treasury would receive a direct share of any future success at these companies. The strategy is part of a 'CHIPS 2.0' package prepared by the presidential team in response to China's quantum investment strategy.
China's position in the quantum race has strengthened significantly in recent years. The Chinese Academy of Sciences' Quantum National Laboratory in Hefei demonstrated a 1,000-qubit quantum-supremacy result in 2024. The Chinese government's 2025-2030 strategic plan commits a total of $15 billion to quantum computing.
A striking feature of the US investment list is that each company represents a different technological approach. IonQ and Quantinuum use 'trapped ion' technology; Rigetti and Google use a 'superconducting' approach; PsiQuantum uses a 'photonic' approach; Atom Computing and QuEra use a 'neutral atom' approach. The diversity functions as a strategic hedge — it remains unclear which technology will ultimately prevail.
Dr Jay Gambetta, who leads quantum computing at IBM Research, told Ars Technica: 'This will significantly strengthen the US quantum ecosystem.' Gambetta shared his estimate that quantum computing will reach the 'useful quantum supremacy' threshold between 2028 and 2030 — the point at which a quantum computer performs an industrial computation in practical time that a classical computer cannot.
The political reaction from Congress arrived quickly. Democrat Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) said in a statement: 'Federal taxpayer money taking equity in private companies through a route Congress did not approve raises a new oversight question. How will future conflicts of interest at companies in which the federal government is a shareholder be managed?' The White House said the federal stakes will take the form of non-voting preferred shares.
For the quantum computing sector itself, the announcement is meaningful support. The sector has seen a 35% drop in private-capital investment since the start of 2025, with AI investment drawing attention away from quantum. PsiQuantum CEO Jeremy O'Brien said: 'This investment is an important validation for our sector. We hope that federal leadership here will be a new vote of confidence for the private sector as well.'
A note for readers of the article: some of the companies named in the investment are publicly traded (IonQ, Rigetti, Quantum Brilliance) and their shares rose 15-22% in pre-market trading after the announcement. The other companies are private and their valuations are not public. This article is written as federal-policy reporting, not as market analysis.