Washington, May 21, 2026, 07:14 (EDT)
- The Commerce Department is set to roll out $2.013 billion from the CHIPS Act to back nine quantum firms.
- The U.S. government will hold minority stakes in each recipient without taking control.
- Washington is moving beyond grants, taking direct stakes in key technology companies with the latest step.
U.S. Commerce said Thursday it has signed letters of intent for $2.013 billion in funding for nine quantum computing companies, taking minority, non-controlling equity stakes in each. The equity stake means the government would take shares in these firms. NIST
Washington is moving to bring more advanced tech manufacturing stateside ahead of quantum systems reaching commercial scale. Commerce said quantum computing could touch national defense, materials discovery, drug research, financial modeling, and energy systems. NIST
The package is another example of the Trump administration’s push to treat federal money as investment rather than straight subsidy. Reuters reported the plan would let the administration take equity in firms seen as important to key US supply chains and in sectors like chipmaking, aiming to offset China. Reuters
IBM is set to get $1 billion in planned funding from Commerce to launch a quantum foundry business making superconducting wafers. GlobalFoundries will take $375 million to build a secure U.S. quantum foundry as a base for key quantum hardware. NIST
Atom Computing, D-Wave, Infleqtion, PsiQuantum, Quantinuum and Rigetti will each get $100 million or as much as $100 million, Commerce said. Diraq will get as much as $38 million. Seven companies are up for these smaller awards. NIST
The Trump administration is pushing the U.S. ahead on quantum with today’s CHIPS Research and Development investments, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in a statement. Bill Frauenhofer, who runs Semiconductor Investment and Innovation, said the office is using a “portfolio approach” for quantum tech. NIST
Quantum shares climbed ahead of the open. Reuters said companies in the deal traded up 7% to 21% premarket, with Barron’s putting IBM up 6.4%, Rigetti 14%, D-Wave 18%, and IonQ 6.9%. IonQ was not named in Commerce’s award list. Reuters
The money is spread among multiple rival quantum computing methods: neutral-atom, silicon-spin, superconducting, photonic and trapped-ion systems. These are different ways to make qubits, the main part of a quantum computer. Commerce said the funding will address things like error rates, cryogenic equipment, readout electronics, photonic loss and interconnects. NIST
The CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 set aside $50 billion for Commerce to spend on semiconductor initiatives, with $11 billion aimed at U.S. research and development and $39 billion for incentives for facilities and equipment in the country. NIST
Quantum tech isn’t a sure commercial play yet. Reuters said current quantum machines devote most of their computing power to fixing their own errors, leaving them no faster than regular computers. Commerce’s list of projects getting money shows core engineering issues are still unsolved. Reuters
The deal uses a structure the government has relied on before. In 2025, the U.S. took a 9.9% stake in Intel as part of a CHIPS Act agreement, and Reuters has reported that the same kind of equity stakes have come up in talks or deals with other companies in critical minerals and semiconductors, like MP Materials and USA Rare Earth. Reuters
Washington is lumping quantum hardware in with semiconductors and rare earths under its supply-chain focus. For investors, that means the U.S. government is moving in as a shareholder, but companies still have to turn research into dependable hardware. That process could take time.
