Quantum stocks soar as the Trump administration looks to be buying in

By Tomi Kilgore and Hannah Pedone

The U.S. government is set to provide $2 billion in grants and take stakes in quantum-computing companies

Quantum-computing companies' stocks are jumping after a Wall Street Journal report indicated that the Trump administration is taking minority stakes in nine companies.

Shares of quantum-computing companies took flight Thursday after the Trump administration reportedly struck deals with nine companies, including taking minority equity stakes.

A slew of companies including IBM, D-Wave Quantum, PsiQuantum, Infleqtion, GlobalFoundries and Diraq also announced the signing of letters of intent with the Department of Commerce for quantum research and projects.

IBM (IBM) looks to be the big winner in the deal, as the technology giant is set to receive $1 billion, according to a company press release. That is meant to speed up the development of specialized chips for quantum computing. The stock soared 12.4% on Thursday.

The company announced Thursday that it will put the funding toward creating a pure-play quantum foundry, Anderon, which will operate as an IBM company and function as a 300-millimeter quantum wafer foundry.

GlobalFoundries' stock (GFS) rose 14.9% on Thursday, as the same report said the chip maker's deal with the Trump administration includes $375 million in funding.

Other companies in line to see $100 million in funding, according to the Journal's report, were Infleqtion (INFQ), whose shares gained 31.5% on Thursday; Rigetti Computing, whose stock (RGTI) jumped 30.1%; and D-Wave Quantum, which saw its shares (QBTS) run up 33.4%.

D-Wave announced that the funding would help it scale its quantum systems and build out forthcoming research-and-development facilities.

The startup Diraq, meanwhile, said it will receive $38 million in funding.

"With today's CHIPS Research and Development investments in quantum computing, the Trump administration is leading the world into a new era of American innovation," Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said, according to a press release from IBM. "These strategic quantum technology investments will build on our domestic industry, creating thousands of high-paying American jobs while advancing American quantum capabilities."

The Trump administration will take minority stakes in each of the companies, although the government didn't provide details on the size of each stake, the Journal reported. The funding for the deals comes from the Chips and Science Act, signed into law four years ago by President Joe Biden and administered by the Department of Commerce.

The quantum move would be the latest step by the U.S. government to take stakes in companies to help them compete in businesses deemed strategically important. The government previously made investments in rare-earth companies MP Materials (MP) and USA Rare Earth (USAR) and in chip maker Intel (INTC).

According to the Wall Street Journal's reporting, the Trump administration is working on an executive order related to quantum computing.

Quantum startups Atom Computing, PsiQuantum and Quantinuum are also in line to receive federal funding.

Ken Mahoney, CEO of Mahoney Asset Management, told MarketWatch that the investments signal that the White House is "taking quantum seriously" even though it may be a long time before there are practical use cases for the technology.

The Trump administration has "continuously told investors where to park their money" - in tech and AI infrastructure and in companies like Intel, Mahoney said. Next up is quantum.

Mahoney said the White House's investment in IBM in particular, to build a quantum foundry, shows that the administration is "turning talk or narrative into a reality."

VJ Sahi, partner and senior vice president at Clark Street Associates, said the announcements represent "by far" the largest push the U.S. government has made into commercial quantum.

"While the government states that they've invested billions of dollars in quantum computing, in the past virtually all of that has been funding for university and national lab research," he said.

Sahi added that for many of the companies the administration is investing in, $100 million can support "multiple state-of-the-art quantum systems, next-generation chip development and broader commercialization efforts."

He said that the $2 billion aggregate investment represents a "huge" move for the U.S. government.

-Tomi Kilgore -Hannah Pedone

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05-21-26 1645ET