The Australian Government has announced that it will be investing in PsQuantum, a US company based in Palo Alto California. This investment is valued at 940M AUD (650M USD) and the structure will be a mixture of grant, equity, and loan. The goal of the investment is for PsiQuantum to build a first-in-the-world utility-scale quantum computer at a location near Brisbane Airport in Brisbane, Australia with an aggressive plan to make the site functional by the end of 2027.

PsiQuantum is building the world’s first useful quantum computer using a photonics architecture to achieve fault tolerance in their system and applied in industries including climate tech, energy, pharma, defence, financial services, and beyond. PsiQuantum’s approach is to beat the current state of quantum computing which provides better calculations for computational problems but with lots of errors by providing quantum computers that can solve classical algorithms faster, offers error correction, and advanced architecture for networking & control electronics capabilities.

The CEO of PsiQuantum, Prof. Jeremy O’Brien said that a utility-scale quantum computer offers a new foundational structure for computational infrastructure to ignite the next industrial revolution. The investment from the Australian and Queensland governments positions PsiQuantum to solve today’s impossible problems and the base upon which future solutions that are desperately needed will be designed and built, Jeremy reported.

PsiQuantum Chief Business Officer, Stratton Sclavos also said “Today’s endorsement from the Australian government establishes another critical milestone in PsiQuantum’s mission to deliver the world’s first useful quantum computers” according to Businesswire.

The quantum computing company which started its journey in 2015 has already made significant strides by building photonic components which include single photon sources, single-photon detectors, and an ultra-high performance optical switch that are fabricated in a high-volume semiconductor foundry on standard silicon wafers. 

Since then, over 1 million and 1 thousand devices and wafers have been tested respectively. With financial backing from private investors worth $665m in 2021 and $25m from the US government in 2022, PsiQuantum has gone on to make impressive progress along its journey. This new investment will further strengthen their push towards realizing their goal of making quantum computers useful and accessible after being the world’s most funded quantum independent company.

According to Physicsworld, a quantum physicist from the University of Sydney named Stephen Berlett commended the news as a welcome development citing that the scale of investment required to build this scale of technology needs to be at par with what big giants such as Google, Microsoft, AWS, and IBM are investing into quantum computing initiatives.

Adding to that, Ekaterina Almasque, general partner of venture capital firm, OpenOcean stated that the investment may bring additional benefits to Australia. Ekaterina called the move “a bold declaration that quantum will be at the heart of Australia’s national tech strategy, firing the starting gun in the next leg of the race for quantum [advantage]” as reported by Physicsworld.

However, the news did not go well with some concerned parties like the Science spokesperson for Australia’s opposition Liberal/National Party coalition, Paul Fletcher who stated that the investment process was questionable and failed to meet the standards of transparency and contest-ability favouring PsiQuantum in the process.

Lu Chao-Yang from the University of Science and Technology of China stated on X that there is here is “no technologically feasible pathway to the fault-tolerant quantum computers PsiQuantum promised” adding that there are many “formidable” challenges” also reported by Physicsworld.