Quantum Leap: Nvidia CEO says quantum computing technology at inflection point

Welcome to the latest edition of “Quantum Leap” where The Fly decodes news and activity in the quantum computing space.

Quantum computing technology is at an inflection point, Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang told the VivaTech conference in Paris on Wednesday, adding that quantum computing will solve “some interesting problems” in the coming years, Reuters’ Supantha Mukherjee reported.

IBM (IBM) on Monday unveiled its path to build what it says is the world’s first large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer, setting the stage for practical and scalable quantum computing. “Delivered by 2029, IBM Quantum Starling will be built in a new IBM Quantum Data Center in Poughkeepsie, New York and is expected to perform 20,000 times more operations than today’s quantum computers. To represent the computational state of an IBM Starling would require the memory of more than a quindecillion of the world’s most powerful supercomputers. With Starling, users will be able to fully explore the complexity of its quantum states, which are beyond the limited properties able to be accessed by current quantum computers.” “IBM is charting the next frontier in quantum computing,” said Arvind Krishna, chairman and CEO, IBM. “Our expertise across mathematics, physics, and engineering is paving the way for a large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer – one that will solve real-world challenges and unlock immense possibilities for business.”

D-Wave Quantum (QBTS) disclosed that on June 10, it entered into a sales agreement with Needham, Evercore, TD Securities, Canaccord Genuity, Mizuho Securities, Piper Sandler, Craig-Hallum and Rosenblatt Securities pursuant to which the company may sell from time to time shares of common stock through or to the agents. D-Wave may offer and sell shares of its common stock having an aggregate offering price of up to $400M from time to time. As previously disclosed, management believes the company’s cash balance as of March 31 is sufficient to fund the company to profitability. D-Wave intends to use the proceeds from any sales for general corporate purposes.

Sealsq (LAES) announced that it is partnering with Landis+Gyr to provide utilities with a public key infrastructure solution. Sealsq’s advanced Public Key Infrastructure tool, INeS, was selected by Landis+Gyr to provide 30M digital certificates for smart meters being deployed in the Asia Pacific region starting this summer. In addition to this PKI agreement, Landis+Gyr and Sealsq have collaborated on European projects including security solutions for over one million gas meters annually in the UK. These security elements, combined with INeS-managed PKI services, ensure compliance with local regulations and provide end-to-end security for Landis+Gyr’s smart metering solutions.

Rigetti Computing (RGTI) has completed sales of $350M gross proceeds of its common stock pursuant to its previously disclosed at-the-market equity offering program. With this additional funding, Rigetti will have approximately $575M of cash, cash equivalents and available-for-sale investments with no debt, and is well positioned to support commercial scale-up of its superconducting gate-based quantum computers. Rigetti intends to use the proceeds from the offering primarily for working capital, capital expenditures and other general corporate purposes, and may also use a portion of the net proceeds to enter into strategic collaborations, acquisitions or partnerships in the future.

Sealsq in cooperation with its parent company, WISeKey (WKEY), announced a breakthrough in securing and controlling the next generation of intelligent machines as billions of robots are poised to enter every aspect of society. The companies said. “By combining SEALSQ’s post-quantum semiconductor technology with WISeKey’s Root of Trust infrastructure, the companies are delivering a critical solution to one of the most pressing technological challenges of our time: ensuring that future autonomous robots remain under trusted human command. SEALSQ’s post-quantum chips are engineered to resist the enormous processing power of future quantum computers, which will render today’s encryption obsolete. These chips embed advanced cryptographic protection directly into the silicon, making it possible to secure robot identities, encrypt communications, and guarantee software integrity, right from the point of manufacture. This protection is essential for a world in which machines will operate independently, often in sensitive environments or critical infrastructure.”

IonQ (IONQ) announced results of a collaborative research program between IonQ, AstraZeneca (AZN), Amazon Web Services (AMZN), and Nvidia to develop and demonstrate a quantum-accelerated computational chemistry workflow. The results of the collaboration will be showcased at the ISC High Performance conference, which takes place on June 10-13 in Hamburg, Germany. IonQ and its partners demonstrated a large-scale, end-to-end simulation of a Suzuki-Miyaura reaction. The hybrid quantum-classical workflow – orchestrated via Cuda-Q on Amazon Braket, accelerated with Nvidia H200 GPUs through AWS ParallelCluster – delivered more than a 20x speedup in time-to-solution compared to prior benchmarks. This advancement highlights the scalability of IonQ’s quantum systems and their practical potential in pharmaceutical R&D.

IonQ and Oxford Ionics announced they have entered into a definitive agreement for IonQ to acquire Oxford Ionics in a transaction valued at $1.075B, which will consist of $1.065B in shares of IonQ common stock and approximately $10M in cash. The combined company expects to build systems with 256 physical qubits at accuracies of 99.99% by 2026 and advance to over 10,000 physical qubits with logical accuracies of 99.99999% by 2027. The combined company anticipates extending its innovation by reaching 2M physical qubits in its quantum computers by 2030, enabling logical qubit accuracies exceeding 99.9999999999%. Both Oxford Ionics founders, Chris Ballance and Tom Harty, are expected to remain with IonQ after the acquisition is completed, continuing their pioneering work on quantum technology development in the UK. The combined entity also plans to expand its workforce in Oxford to further develop the UK’s position as a leader in quantum computing. Benchmark raised the firm’s price target on IonQ to $50 from $40 and keeps a Buy rating on the shares after the company announced a definitive agreement to acquire UK-based Oxford Ionics in a transaction valued at $1.075B, mostly in stock. The transaction expands IonQ’s technology portfolio with Oxford Ionic’s proprietary ion-trap-on-chip architecture and “further solidifies the company’s leadership in trapped-ion quantum computing,” the analyst told investors.

President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order to strengthen the nation’s cybersecurity by “focusing on critical protections against foreign cyber threats and enhancing secure technology practices,” the White House announced. The Order “amends problematic elements of Obama and Biden-era Executive Orders” and directs the Federal government to advance secure software development, the White House stated. “The Order directs department and agency level actions on post-quantum cryptography to ensure protection against threats that may leverage next generation compute architectures,” a White House fact sheet noted.