The Department of Commerce has signed nine letters of intent (LOI) to provide more than $2 billion in CHIPS and Science Act funding to companies aimed at accelerating quantum technologies.
Companies that signed LOIs include Atom Computing, Diraq, D-Wave, GlobalFoundries, IBM, Infleqtion, PsiQuantum, Quantinuum, and Rigetti. That list includes two domestic quantum foundry companies and seven quantum computing companies, according to Commerce.
The CHIPS and Science Act was approved by Congress in 2022 and made up to $52 billion of funding available to incentivize semiconductor makers to establish new manufacturing operations in the United States.
The Commerce Department said the new quantum incentives are aimed at cementing U.S. leadership in a technology seen as critical to national security, advanced manufacturing, drug discovery, finance, and energy. Officials said building a strong domestic quantum ecosystem is key to maintaining America’s long-term technological and strategic edge.
GlobalFoundries will receive $375 million to establish a domestic quantum foundry for leading architectures and multiple modalities used in large-scale quantum computers, and IBM will receive $1 billion to build a quantum foundry subsidiary for quantum-grade superconducting wafers. Diraq will be awarded $38 million, and the remaining six companies will each receive $100 million.
“The CHIPS R&D Office is taking a portfolio approach to strengthen and accelerate U.S. leadership across multiple quantum modalities at once, while focusing each award on discrete technological problems of genuine consequence,” Bill Frauenhofer, executive director of semiconductor investment and innovation at the Commerce Department, said in a statement.
“We will be providing incentives to build domestic quantum capacity, solve the hardest engineering challenges, enable multi-year acceleration of technology roadmaps, and drive continued U.S. quantum leadership,” Frauenhofer continued.
According to Commerce, the CHIPS incentives will help address multiple quantum modalities, such as neutral atom, silicon-spin, superconducting, photonic, and trapped ion, while accelerating research and development for unresolved engineering problems.
Under the LOIs, companies and Commerce agreed that the department will receive a minority and non-controlling equity stake in each company.
The announcement falls amid a global shift from quantum technology research and development to early commercialization. According to the Quantum Economic Development Consortium, more than 7,000 organizations worldwide are members of the quantum sector, and the United States is one of the top leaders in public investments in quantum technology.
Commerce’s $2 billion CHIPS investment reflects the federal government’s aim to continue the momentum. U.S. Chief Technology Officer Ethan Klein said last month that the Trump administration wants to move beyond just funding quantum research, saying that “we need to advance now towards all the commercialization and applications, identifying what those applications are, and incentivizing more private capital to flow in.”