Quantum computing CEOs hope “validating” government backing proves their technology is no longer speculative

In recent years, publicly traded quantum computing upstarts have been whipped around by grand pronouncements from the world’s largest companies and the presumption of support from the government of the world’s largest economy, causing massive waves of retail money into and out of their stocks.

In other words, speculation drove speculative stocks.

Thursday’s massive gains in Infleqtion, D-Wave Quantum, and Rigetti Computing were no exception. The surges came as the Trump administration awarded grants to these firms, among others, in exchange for equity stakes.

In interviews with Sherwood News, the CEOs of Infleqtion and D-Wave called the government’s backing “validating” and an “important endorsement,” respectively, making the case that the funding signals their technology is no longer speculative — and leaves them well positioned to prove it.

“ The US government decided to take a very hard look at the state of the quantum computing industry and walked away with the conclusion that we are closer than most had thought,” said Infleqtion CEO Matthew Kinsella. “Therefore the US government felt it was time to invest taxpayer money into quantum computing companies because it’s a critical technology that they deem no longer speculative.”

“ This is about accelerating our R&D program,” said D-Wave CEO Dr. Alan Baratz. “With this government funding, we’re able to make a more significant investment sooner and accelerate that work, and in the case of our gate-model program, potentially up to a three-year acceleration.”

Ahead of this announcement, Infleqtion had already been selling quantum equipment (like sensors and clocks) or software to the Department of Defense and NASA. D-Wave, for its part, has a partnership with Davidson Technologies and Anduril Industries (two companies that have received lucrative defense contracts) to help improve US missile defense planning.

However, these investments by the government do not mark a bid to see incremental improvements to the products and services it’s already receiving from the industry. It’s a push to boost the foundational elements of quantum computing to get the industry ready for prime time.

“At the highest level, what do we need to get useful quantum computing? We need a lot of very high-quality qubits, and then we need to error-correct them,” said Infleqtion’s Kinsella. “ You can think about this funding being directly associated with accelerating one of those three things: more qubits, higher-quality qubits, and error correction.”

Despite not being involved with this initiative, IonQ and Quantum Computing also jumped in sympathy with their government-backed peers on Thursday.

But while traders might be treating this as a case of a rising tide lifting all boats, make no mistake: Baratz and Kinsella are taking it as a point of pride that they’re among those who received these grants.

For Baratz, this marks the culmination of a multiyear effort to get the US government to pay more attention to annealing quantum computing, D-Wave’s leading technology.

 “Up until now, the US government has been primarily focused on gate-model quantum computing,” he said. “This is an important endorsement for the first time from the US government in annealing quantum computing, and I think that’s a very important and very strong statement, and we’re very excited about it.”

(To oversimplify, gate-based models have more potential power and flexibility in problem-solving, while annealing computers provide solutions to more specific optimization queries.)

This process was a competition where the government picked the winners — and not too many of the players won, Kinsella said.

“Every quantum company I have spoken with throughout the supply chain applied and put in a proposal for this CHIPS Act money,” he said. “So I view this as the US government having done a very, very broad overview of the quantum industry and selected the partners that they believe can execute.”