Quantum computing startup PsiQuantum signs $125 million DARPA deal
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E-mailBy Stephen Nellis
SAN FRANCISCO, July 22 (Reuters) - PsiQuantum has signed a $125 million agreement with the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the quantum computing startup's largest U.S. government award to date.
The deal falls under DARPA's Quantum Benchmarking Initiative, which aims to determine whether it is possible to build an industrially useful quantum computer by 2033. The award will fund testing of PsiQuantum's hardware and software and follows a $31.8 million DARPA agreement in September 2025.
In an interview, PsiQuantum Chief Executive Victor Peng said the DARPA vetting will help the industry work out "what's real and what's not." He said PsiQuantum's first commercial-scale machine should be running around 2030.
"We can do simulations and solve problems that traditional computing, even for the next few centuries, won't solve," Peng said.
Founded in 2016, PsiQuantum uses photonics — the light-based technology behind fiber-optic cables of the internet — with chips manufactured at GlobalFoundries in New York. It raised $1 billion at a $7 billion valuation last September, in a round led by BlackRock, Temasek and Baillie Gifford, with Nvidia's venture arm participating.
The deal deepens PsiQuantum's work with the U.S. government. In May, the Commerce Department said it would take minority equity stakes in nine quantum firms in exchange for $2 billion under the CHIPS Act, with IBM due $1 billion, GlobalFoundries $375 million and PsiQuantum $100 million. Those agreements are not final.
Peng, a former Advanced Micro Devices president, was named permanent CEO this month after joining as interim chief in February. Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan joined PsiQuantum's board in April, and it recently recruited executives who previously worked at memory chipmaker Sandisk and chip design software firm Synopsys.
(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Sam Holmes)
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