One of these companies is linked to Donald Trump Jr. and another to a senior Pentagon official.
The US government has taken stakes worth $2 billion in nine quantum computing companies, including one linked to the Trump family and another made public by a current Pentagon official. IBM was the biggest beneficiary, alongside companies such as D-Wave Quantum, Atom Computing and PsiQuantum, according to The Financial Times and press releases from D-Wave and PsiQuantum. The agreements would not be final and the White House is still soliciting proposals from other technology companies.
“With CHIPS’ current investments in quantum computing research and development, the Trump administration is leading the world into a new era of American innovation,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in a statement. “These strategic investments in quantum technology will build on our domestic industry, creating thousands of good-paying American jobs while advancing America’s quantum capabilities.”
PsiQuantum, which received $100 million, is linked to Donald Trump Jr.’s company 1789 Capital. Another, D-Wave Quantum, was taken public in 2022 by a current senior Pentagon official, Michael Emil. The stock of the latter increased significantly following the operation.
The Trump administration has invested in key market areas such as chips and critical minerals, including a $10 billion investment in Intel last year. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other U.S. officials have previously lobbied the Defense Department over contracts awarded to companies associated with Donald Trump Jr., including Cerebras Systems, PsiQuantum and Firehawk Aerospace, among others. Intel also faces a lawsuit from shareholders over its deal with the U.S. government.
Quantum computing is a developing field with theoretical potential but few concrete achievements. These computers use “qubits” instead of regular bits which can represent multiple states at once rather than binary ones and zeros. It is thought that they could perform certain calculations faster than classical computers, such as breaking encryption schemes and performing physics simulations. Last October, IBM showed that it could run a timeless ordered correlator algorithm (a measure of an exotic quantum system) faster than a classical computer.
