SINGAPORE - A Temasek-backed company, PsiQuantum, is receiving a major funding boost of A$940 million (S$836 million) from the Australian government as it competes to build the world’s first commercially useful quantum computer.
The firm will establish its regional headquarters near Brisbane Airport, Queensland, where it plans to build the world’s first utility-scale quantum computer, it announced on April 29.
PsiQuantum co-founder and chief executive officer Jeremy O’Brien said the effort represents an opportunity to construct a new, practical foundation of computational infrastructure and ignite the next industrial revolution.
Quantum computing’s processing power outperforms current computers and can potentially tackle the complex modelling of scientific problems such as longer-term weather or climate predictions.
While current computers use silicon chips, quantum computers use “qubits”, in which elementary particles like electrons can exist simultaneously in more than one state, allowing these computers to make many calculations in parallel, and thereby be faster than classical computers.
However, at this point, qubits are unreliable and unstable, which is why a commercially viable computer has yet to be developed. A utility-scale quantum computer will be able to handle one million qubits.
PsiQuantum acknowledged that the plan to have the site ready by 2027 is an aggressive one.
Google, IBM, Microsoft and Quantinuum have similar ambitions to build a practical quantum computer. According to the Australian Financial Review, IBM has demonstrated a 433-qubit quantum processor. The more qubits, the fewer the errors, and IBM aims to raise the number to 1,000 or more qubits by 2025. Google has a 70-qubit system that it says can make a certain calculation 47 years faster than a classical supercomputer.
In 2021, Temasek, BlackRock, Microsoft and other investors pumped some US$450 million (S$612 million) into PsiQuantum.
Temasek says that as an asset owner, it seeks to deliver sustainable returns over the long term. It told The Straits Times: “We believe that tech-driven innovations also can create large, future markets and this can impact our portfolio.”
Temasek’s deep-tech investments focus on net-zero technologies, the future of computing and cognition, disruptive material science and other emerging frontier technology. PsiQuantum’s technology comes under the future of computing and cognition.
Temasek’s head of emerging technologies Russell Tham said: “This form of computing at utility-scale, that can operate without errors, will unleash a new wave of innovation in material science, drug discovery, logistics and many other fields. This could include a previously unattainable category of computer-generated data for AI training. We look forward to working with PsiQuantum as it expands globally.”
