U.S. to Buy Stakes, Invest $2B in Nine Quantum Firms

The Commerce Department will invest $2 billion and take minority equity stakes in nine quantum computing firms, converting federal grant funding into ownership positions across a range of hardware approaches.

IBM is slated to receive $1 billion and GlobalFoundries $375 million. Other named recipients include D-Wave Quantum, Rigetti Computing and Infleqtion, each reported to receive about $100 million, and Diraq with roughly $38 million. The package totals $2 billion and covers both public and private companies.

The awards are structured as minority equity investments tied to federal funding rather than straight grants. The arrangement follows an earlier conversion of CHIPS Act funding into an ownership stake in Intel, where $5.7 billion in support was converted into about 433 million shares.

Recipients pursue different technical approaches. IBM and Rigetti work on superconducting qubits, D-Wave builds quantum annealers, Infleqtion focuses on neutral-atom systems, Diraq develops silicon spin qubits, and GlobalFoundries provides fabrication and manufacturing support. The funding and stakes spread federal exposure across multiple architectures.

Shares of the publicly traded recipients moved higher in premarket trading after the announcement. Stocks for IBM, GlobalFoundries, D-Wave, Rigetti and Infleqtion rose by roughly 7% to 21% in early trading.

Officials framed the program as designed to accelerate commercialization of quantum hardware and support U.S. competitiveness in advanced computing. Voting rights, lockup periods and exit terms for the equity stakes have not been disclosed, and those details will determine how the holdings are governed.

Industry experts noted the uncertainty around quantum timelines and the technical demands of scaling machines. Michael Osborne, chief technology officer of IBM Quantum Safe, warned that widely reported timeframes can be misleading and emphasized the need for “very high quality qubits,” adding that progress depends on architecture, circuit depth and how classical and quantum resources are combined.

Observers also identified potential governance issues. Public equity stakes raise questions about conflicts of interest, future procurement, export controls and how the government will manage its positions alongside regulatory responsibilities.