The US government does not normally buy shares in companies. On Thursday, it started.

The Commerce Department signed letters of intent with nine quantum computing companies, committing $2 billion in exchange for equity stakes — not grants, not procurement contracts, but actual ownership positions in private firms. It is a new mechanism for American industrial policy, and the list of recipients raises questions that have nothing to do with physics.

What the $2 Billion Buys

The largest award by far goes to IBM, which is set to receive $1 billion. GlobalFoundries, the chip manufacturer, will get $375 million. Five companies — Atom Computing, Infleqtion, PsiQuantum, Quantinuum, and Rigetti — are each in line for roughly $100 million. Diraq, a smaller startup, will receive up to $38 million. D-Wave Quantum’s award amount was not disclosed in the announcement.

The common thread: all nine are working on quantum computing hardware or infrastructure. The mechanism is the CHIPS and Science Act’s research and development provisions, repurposed here not to subsidize manufacturing but to give Washington a financial stake in the technology’s success.

That distinction matters. Traditional industrial policy hands out money and hopes for the best. Equity means the government profits if these companies succeed — and owns a piece of the strategic asset either way. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick framed it as a signature achievement, stating that the Trump administration is “leading the world into a new era of American innovation.”

The Political Entanglements

The list of awardees includes at least two companies with direct connections to current government officials.

PsiQuantum, which is set to receive $100 million — its largest US government award to date — raised money last year from a group of investors that included 1789 Capital, a venture capital firm where Donald Trump Jr serves as a partner. A person close to PsiQuantum said that 1789 was a passive minority investor with no involvement in the company’s operations. A spokesperson for Trump Jr said he had no involvement in government negotiations on behalf of 1789’s portfolio companies.

D-Wave Quantum, another recipient, was taken public in 2022 by Emil Michael, who now serves as a top Pentagon official. The Commerce Department and the companies involved have not disclosed how potential conflicts of interest were evaluated during the selection process, according to the cited reporting.

The appearance of proximity to power does not prove favoritism. But in a program where the government is picking winners and taking ownership stakes, the optics are difficult to ignore.

Why Quantum — and Why Now

Quantum computing is, by most honest assessments, still a laboratory proposition. No quantum computer has solved a commercially useful problem that a classical machine could not. The technology remains fragile, error-prone, and years — possibly decades — away from the kind of general-purpose utility that would justify the current flood of investment.

So why is the US government treating it like strategic infrastructure? The answer is China. Beijing has made quantum technology a stated national priority, pouring resources into quantum communication networks, quantum sensing, and fault-tolerant computing research. US officials have repeatedly warned that falling behind in quantum could be as consequential as losing the semiconductor race — a race Washington is already running, at vastly greater expense, through the same CHIPS Act framework.

The logic is preemptive: invest now, even before the technology is proven, to ensure that American firms hold the critical patents and manufacturing capacity if and when quantum computing matures.

A Bet on a Timeline Nobody Can Predict

The equity model is genuinely novel for US technology policy. Washington has subsidized industries before — semiconductors, clean energy, agriculture — but typically through tax incentives, grants, or contracts. Taking direct financial stakes in private companies crosses a threshold that previous administrations, regardless of party, generally avoided.

Whether it works depends entirely on whether quantum computing becomes commercially viable within a timeframe that justifies $2 billion in public capital. The companies involved are bullish, as companies tend to be when handed nine-figure checks. The physics is not. Error correction, qubit stability, and scaling remain formidable engineering challenges that no amount of government investment can simply legislate away.

The strategic logic for investing in quantum is defensible. The commercial case is still unproven. The political connections surrounding the awards are a story in themselves. All three things are true at once, and none of them resolves the others.

Sources