A bold and timely bet: the U.S. Government invests in quantum computing

At DCVC, we have backed quantum tech­nolo­gies from the field’s earliest days, and we welcome the bold and timely bet the U.S. government announced today to accelerate the path to fault-tolerant quantum computing.

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s $2 billion investment across nine quantum companies materially involves four DCVC portfolio companies, and it includes a $100 million equity stake in Atom Computing. Quantum Motion, our silicon-spin-qubit company where we led the Series C, will benefit from the $375 million allocation to Glob­al­Foundries — the foundry partner whose manu­fac­turing capacity benefits silicon-spin-qubit systems scale. Another DCVC portfolio company, Rigetti Computing (Nasdaq: RGTI), where we first invested in 2014, will receive $100 million. IBM will receive $1 billion — matched by $1 billion of its own capital — to build Anderon, the nation’s first purpose-built quantum chip foundry. We note with pride that IBM’s efforts to achieve true fault tolerance and scale are dependent on yet another DCVC company, Q‑CTRL. We are also pleased to see Quantinuum on this selective list of investment recipients.

As global competition intensifies, the U.S. government has shifted toward direct investment models to protect domestic intel­lec­tual property, accelerate commer­cial­iza­tion, and rebuild manu­fac­turing capacity. The Department of Commerce’s CHIPS Research and Development Office will support and accelerate critical research and manu­fac­turing across the quantum ecosystem to secure continued American leadership and national security. Notably, the program converts federal grants into minority equity stakes — making the American public and the government long-term partners in the success of foun­da­tional quantum technologies.

Accel­er­ating the quantum roadmap at Atom Computing

The timelines for achieving utility-scale quantum computing are continuing to shrink as break­throughs accelerate. Atom Computing has consis­tently emerged as a frontrunner by pioneering the use of neutral atoms as a highly scalable platform. The company has developed systems with over 1,000 qubits and is currently installing the world’s first commercial quantum computer with logical qubits. Atom is also demon­strating its path to utility-scale computing through its ongoing performance on Stage B of DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative.

With the Commerce Depart­ment’s backing, Atom Computing is positioned to move faster than ever. The funding will directly accelerate its technology roadmap through key engineering initiatives: in-house development of critical components to drive system performance, paral­lelized testbeds to rapidly validate and scale innovations, and deeper collab­o­ra­tions with supply chain partners to support manu­fac­tura­bility and growth.

As we have since the earliest days of Atom Computing, we are proud to support — with capital, unique expertise, and critical rela­tion­ships — founder and CEO Ben Bloom and the entire Atom team as they work to deliver full-scale quantum systems that will enable unprece­dented computational breakthroughs.

The future of deep tech partnership

Today’s announce­ment validates a conviction we have long held: that the deepest, most conse­quen­tial tech­nolo­gies of the next century require patient capital, scientific rigor, and — when the strategic stakes warrant it — committed partnership with the public sector. Quantum is exactly that kind of technology. Its eventual leader will not merely have better tools; it will hold a cate­gor­i­cally different form of compu­ta­tional leverage, one that will shape global power structures for decades. The Commerce Depart­ment’s investment, paired with private capital and corporate commitment, is the kind of alignment that turns scientific promise into industrial reality.

The quantum race is on. We are proud to be in it — alongside our founders, our partners, and now the U.S. government.