Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
Government Supercomputing

US To Award $2 Billion To Quantum Companies, Take Equity Stakes (thequantuminsider.com) 45

Posted by BeauHD from the shaping-the-future dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Quantum Insider: The Trump administration is preparing a new round of industrial policy aimed at quantum computing, with roughly $2 billion in grants expected to go to nine companies developing quantum hardware and related technologies. According to Reuters, citing a Wall Street Journal report, the U.S. Department of Commerce plans to distribute the funding through deals that also give the federal government equity stakes in the companies receiving the awards. The approach would expand Washington's increasingly direct involvement in sectors viewed as strategically important to national security, advanced manufacturing and competition with China.

Reuters reported that IBM is expected to receive the largest share of the package at about $1 billion. Semiconductor manufacturer GlobalFoundries is slated to receive approximately $375 million, according to the report. Other recipients are expected to include D-Wave Quantum, Rigetti Computing, Quantinuum and Infleqtion, with each company potentially receiving around $100 million, Reuters reported. Australian quantum startup Diraq could receive about $38 million, according to the Wall Street Journal report cited by Reuters. Fast Company notes in its reporting that IBM will invest the funds it receives into a new IBM company called Anderon. It will also match the grant with another $1 billion in cash.

"Anderon will operate as a state-of-the-art 300-millimeter quantum wafer foundry," IBM stated in an announcement. "It will help the nation solidify its leadership at the center of a thriving new quantum industry that is estimated to generate up to $850 billion in economic value by 2040 and spur American economic growth while also bolstering national security."

Quantum computing stocks soared after the news. As of publication, IBM is up about 9.7%, D-Wave is up about 28.1%, and Rigetti is up about 26.7%. Meanwhile, Global Foundries rose about 13.8% and Infleqtion jumped about 30.9%.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

US To Award $2 Billion To Quantum Companies, Take Equity Stakes More

US To Award $2 Billion To Quantum Companies, Take Equity Stakes

Comments Filter:

  • And republicans... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Puls4r ( 724907 ) on Thursday May 21, 2026 @03:06PM (#66154492)
    Say nothing as their "small government" party has our Federal Government purchasing private companies that compete with other private companies. Certainly won't be a conflict of interest there. Where are the screams of communism?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ArchieBunker ( 132337 )

      Remember when they made Jimmy Carter sell his peanut farm?

      Meanwhile https://www.citizensforethics.... [citizensforethics.org]

    • Gets their career ended in the next primary election. Trump voters dominate the primary election process and a fucking love trump. And the billionaires like Trump because he takes your money and mine and gives it to them. So you don't have the problem the Democrats have where when they get a popular candidate the billionaires will sometimes interfere with the primary election process to kill them so that the Republican party can win in the general election and keep giving them more free money from you and m

      • "Millions stand behind me".

        And if you don't understand the reference: Millions stand behind me [sfmoma.org].

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Mamdani: Democratic Socialist

      Trump: Undemocratic Socialist

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      When Trump does it, it can obviously not be communism! Or at least that is what his mindless followers deeply believe.

    • More of a state capitalism or fascist state than actual communism. There are no worker councils or plan to address the class struggle.

  • Aren't they funding research for those?

  • Is it the bears of quantum computing causing the rally?

  • Billions of dollars poured into research to build a Quantum Computer that's really good at random number generation!
    Just what a D&D dungeon master really needs!

    But... can it play Doom full screen? Can it play a 4K Blu-Ray?
    Can I install Sony Vegas on it and get instantaneous render times?

  • For once the government seems to simply be investing in a tech policy decision at home. Globally most of the west, and a significant portion of the rising 3rd world has public funds investing in quantum computing. The US's $1bn commitment is tiny in comparison here.

    Now if only they didn't try and kill every other industry they touched. Forward thinking investment in tech in general is not something an administration that is actively supporting backwards technologies, failing businesses, and reducing progres

    • The only question is, who made this decision and how long before Trump kills it, fires those involved and calls them bad names on social media.

      It depends if they're able to convince him that he will own the equity stake, at least for long enough for him to forget about it altogether and focus on the next invasion/grift/scandal.

      • Take a look around - he already doesn't distinguish between property of the government and personal property. The east wing of the White House, the reflecting pool, $1.776 billion slush fund from taxpayer dollars: in his mind, everything exists for whatever purpose he wishes to use it. Anyone who can't see him for the fascist he is has their head so far up their ass that they can taste what they had for breakfast.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        You got that right. If that asshole had any balls, he'd skip the middlemen (the "investing" part) and go straight to shaking down the billionaires. Oh, I see he already does this. Too bad they have no balls as well. "Ah sir, I shall now bend over, I know how you like it."

    • I'm ok with the government investing as long as it's voted upon. Who voted for this?

      • I'm ok with the government investing as long as it's voted upon. Who voted for this?

        77,302,169 people. Because that's how a representative democracy works. People vote by proxy.
        For more of a civics lesson, if this was a decision by the senate then 77,302,169 people voted for it.
        If this was a decision by the president then 77,302,169 voted for it, but their votes didn't all count equally due to the electoral college sitting in the process.

        You don't get to micromanage your government, that's not how government works. People did however vote for it.

    • I'm ok with our government investing in businesses/industries. I think it is a good thing.

      I do have some concerns:

      Was this funding authorized by Congress?

      How were the individual businesses selected?

      Will the money be a loan or will it be a grant?

      Will the government hold shares in the company stock? If so: will the government get a seat on the board? will there be dividends paid? will the government be able to sell its shares on the market? when and under what circumstances?

      How will the businesses be treate

  • Do we know ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Thursday May 21, 2026 @03:43PM (#66154572)

    ... what sorts of entanglements such funds entail?

  • Seizing the means of production.

  • just once (Score:3)

    by toxonix ( 1793960 ) on Thursday May 21, 2026 @03:57PM (#66154594)

    Can't the news story come out AFTER I purchase the stock. I should already have owned shares in GF already. This is probably just an insider trading deal. If the Trump admin's back-office finance team purchases a ton of undervalued stocks, and then Trump hands the companies behind those tickers a few billion in public money, is it a crime?
    It's a crime. As is giving public money to people who tried to overthrow the government. But that's neither here nor there.

  • Does that mean we are nationalizing this technology? Because that's sure what that sounds like.

    I don't want to waste my time calling out Republicans on hypocrisy. Republicans are quite simply not capable of experiencing the combination of shame and self-awareness associated with hypocrisy. So they are basically immune to it.

    When a Republican calls out hypocrisy they don't actually know what the hypocrisy is, but they have seen a pattern where people get upset when they say certain things and Republi
  • Didn't Tick-tock have to sell because of association with the Chinese government ?

    Guess the rest of the world needs to wonder how much the US government is using private companies to spy on them....just like China.

    The EU needs to move faster with digital sovereignty, and then export it to the rest of the world.
  • Socialism welfare for the rich, austerity and inflation for everyone else. So much for "small government" and "private enterprise".

Slashdot Top Deals

Memory fault - where am I?

Close