Quantinuum has finalized an agreement with the US Department of Commerce’s CHIPS Research and Development Office for $100 million in federal funding deployed through the CHIPS and Science Act.
The company said it was the only one with a trapped-ion based architecture to be awarded CHIPS R&D funding. It leverages established semiconductor manufacturing processes to help ensure reliability, repeatability, and scalability of the company’s current and future quantum computers.
“Together with our domestic partners, we are building the technology and supply-chain foundation needed to scale fault-tolerant systems and strengthen America’s leadership in this strategically important field ,” said Rajeeb Hazra, president and CEO of Quantinuum.
The award will support R&D that the company expects to help strengthen and diversify its supply chain, adding onshore partners GlobalFoundries and Monarch Quantum.
GlobalFoundries will be one of several of Quantinuum’s foundries enlisted to fabricate its next-generation ion traps and other electronics, specifically focused on using 300mm wafer technology.
Monarch Quantum plans to develop and manufacture scalable, reliable lasers and optical components required for Quantinuum’s trapped-ion systems.
“As quantum computing moves closer to commercial scale, manufacturing will be critical to unlocking its full potential,” said Tim Breen, CEO of GlobalFoundries.
“By bringing our expertise in high-volume, differentiated semiconductor manufacturing, we’re helping create a path to more scalable, reliable quantum hardware and advancing the next generation of American innovation,” said Breen.
Timothy Day, CEO of Monarch Quantum, said the road to large-scale, trapped-ion quantum computers relies on moving away from complex, sprawling optical setups to scalable, reliable integrated photonics engines.
Together, these efforts are intended to reduce system complexity and improve component robustness, reliability, and reproducibility, ultimately supporting the continued scaling of trapped-ion quantum computers, while strengthening domestic capability across critical photonics and semiconductor manufacturing.
