PsiQuantum revealed that it had raised $1 billion for its Series E round, which aims to create the first fault-tolerant, commercially viable quantum computers.
In a statement, the company stated that this fundraising, which is led by funds and accounts managed by BlackRock affiliates, Temasek, and Baillie Gifford, values the company at $7 billion.
Companies run by Macquarie Capital, Ribbit Capital, NVentures (NVIDIA’s venture capital arm), Adage Capital Management, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Type One Ventures, Counterpoint Global (Morgan Stanley), 1789 Capital, and S Ventures (SentinelOne) are among the new investors attracted by the funding.
Existing investors Blackbird, Third Point Ventures, and T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. also participated in the round.
With this funding, the company will be able to develop its fault-tolerant architecture and quantum photonic chips, deploy large-scale prototype systems to validate systems architecture and integration, and begin construction on utility-scale quantum computing sites in Chicago and Brisbane.
Additionally, PsiQuantum will be able to increase BTO production even more with this new funding, bringing it closer to the volumes required for utility-scale quantum computing.
With the rapidly increasing workloads in artificial intelligence (AI), the Barium Titanate (BTO)-enabled optical switch also holds promise for next-generation AI supercomputers, where low-power, high-speed optical networking is becoming more and more important.
“Only building the real thing — million-qubit scale, fault-tolerant machines — will unlock the promise of quantum computing,
“We defined what it takes from day one: this is a grand engineering challenge, not a science experiment,” said Prof. Jeremy O’Brien, PsiQuantum co-founder and Chief Executive Officer.
PsiQuantum was established on the assumption that error correction—and thus, a million physical qubits—is necessary for commercially viable quantum computing.
It is observed that teams from all over the world are currently vying to construct fault-tolerant systems at this scale, and they are encountering growing difficulties with networking, cooling, and manufacturing.
