Brand new unicorn IQM sets its sights beyond Europe for its quantum computers

Summary

Finnish quantum computing startup IQM is now a unicorn: The company just raised more than $300 million in a Series B funding round that was led by Ten Eleven Ventures, a U.S. investment firm focused on cybersecurity. A university spinout, IQM builds quantum computers meant for on-premises installations as well as a cloud platform that taps this hardware. The company has already sold its quantum computers to enterprises in APAC and the U.S., but its strongest market remains Europe. That’s what this round is intended to change: the startup is planning to use the fresh cash for both a commercial push as well as R&D to align with the market’s evolving understanding of what’s needed to turn advances in quantum science into practical impact. To win U.S. clients in the face of competition from big tech companies like IBM, Google, and Microsoft, IQM knows it must accelerate its roadmap for both hardware and software. According to its co-CEO and co-founder Jan Goetz, this means investing more in the company’s chip fabrication facilities, as well as in software development and error correction research. Error correction, the ability to detect and fix errors inherent in quantum systems, is a hot topic right now, given that the very notion of what makes a quantum computer competitive is being redefined — being able to compute a large number of qubits is less of a holy grail today than it used to be. “It’s always a trade-off between number of qubits and quality and reliability,” Goetz said. Navigating this trade-off will be critical for developing real-world uses for quantum computing that have long been envisioned but weren’t prioritized. But now that quantum advances over traditional supercomputers no longer seem the the stuff of sci-fi, companies like IQM are trying to make sure their computers will have practical applications sooner than later. Reliability aside, IQM’s roadmap aligns with the sector’s growing focus on the software layer that will be required to put quantum c...