Commerce Department Signs Letters of Intent with 9 Companies for $2 Billion Push to Advance U.S. Quantum Computing Leadership
The U.S. Department of Commerce announced nine letters of intent to provide $2.013 billion in federal incentives under the CHIPS and Science Act to support the domestic quantum technology sector. The package is aimed at accelerating progress toward utility-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computers and strengthening U.S. leadership in a field with implications for national defense, advanced materials, biopharmaceutical discovery, financial modeling, and energy systems. Commerce said the investments are intended to expand domestic manufacturing capacity, advance research, and reinforce technological resilience and long-term strategic competitiveness.
Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said the CHIPS Research and Development investments in quantum computing reflect the Trump administration’s focus on American innovation and job creation. The department framed the initiative as part of a broader effort to support advanced manufacturing and microelectronics development while building a stronger domestic quantum ecosystem.
The proposed incentives include support for two quantum foundries: GlobalFoundries and IBM. GlobalFoundries is slated to receive $375 million in planned funding to establish a secure domestic quantum foundry supporting multiple architectures and modalities, including superconducting, trapped ion, photonic, topological and silicon spin systems. IBM is set to receive $1 billion in planned funding to create a new quantum foundry subsidiary focused on quantum-grade superconducting wafers, building on its existing U.S. expertise in superconducting quantum wafer fabrication.
The remaining incentives are structured as a portfolio of awards for seven quantum computing companies working across different modalities and technical challenges. The Commerce Department said the approach is designed to address unresolved engineering problems that are limiting the scaling of quantum systems, including device reproducibility, optical complexity, error rates, cryogenic systems integration, control hardware, ultra-fast readout electronics, photonic loss and interconnects.
Atom Computing will receive $100 million in planned funding to address hardware development and systems integration for neutral-atom quantum computing, including the manipulation and control of tens of thousands of qubits. Diraq will receive up to $38 million to develop and scale quantum logic units and manufacturing capabilities for silicon spin technologies. D-Wave will receive $100 million to advance annealing and gate-model superconducting systems through improvements in qubit counts, error rates, coherence, advanced dielectric materials, interface control and packaging.
Infleqtion will receive $100 million to develop engineering systems for large-scale neutral-atom quantum computers, including optical systems and readout and error-correction technologies. PsiQuantum will receive $100 million to address photonic quantum computing challenges involving electro-optic materials, high-temperature single-photon detectors and low-loss packaging. Quantinuum will receive $100 million to scale fault-tolerant trapped-ion quantum computers through better integrated photonics and optical components. Rigetti will receive up to $100 million to develop next-generation superconducting technologies, including readout electronics and cryostat architectures.
Commerce said it will take a minority, non-controlling equity stake in each company as part of the funding arrangement to improve the return to U.S. taxpayers. The CHIPS R&D Office also continues to seek proposals from eligible applicants for microelectronics research, prototyping and commercial solutions under announcement 2025-NIST-CHIPS-CRDO-01 on Grants.gov.
