No fintech, payments or software deal made it to the top of my list for most noteworthy funding to start off the year. Instead, it’s the recent closing of a $300 million equity round to vertically integrated quantum computer company Quantinuum that takes the prize. The lovechild of Honeywell Quantum Solutions and Cambridge Quantum Computing, conceived in December of 2021, raised the tranche at a pre-money valuation of $5 billion. The primary investors (and strategic partners) were financial services giant JPMorgan and Asian industrial conglomerate Mitsui & Co. The round is notable because it truly signifies the advent of the quantum computing age. It’s also interesting because of the stark distinction between the “hype” the investment generated, with its rather sleepy press pick-up, and the chaotic exuberance surrounding the rush of daily capital inflows to early-stage artificial intelligence startups. The former, a bellwether of arguably the most profound technological machine ever developed by mankind, and the latter because its own utility is currently (and will continue to be) constrained by the limitations of non-quantum computing, i.e., the unravelling of Moore’s Law – the number of transistors that can be etched into a semi-conductor microchip are fast approaching the limit of what is physically possible. This constraint on digital computational firepower needs to be removed in order for artificial intelligence to be, well…intelligent.
That the “quantum age” is a bigger story than AI may be a contrarian position these days, but I’m sticking to it. For all the crazy “dawn of a new age” versus “end of the world” hyperbole associated with artificial intelligence (thank you ChatGPT), the fact remains that for AI to be truly intelligent – not mimic / simulate intelligence, but, rather achieve artificial general intelligence (the classical definition of being equally or more proficient than the human brain) – it will need computational power that simply doesn’t exist today. Specifically, deep learning neural networks will need to process such immensely large structured data sets (we’re talking Brobdingnagian proportions) that even with an army of today’s most powerful digital supercomputers, it simply can’t be done
Quantum computing is the game changer. And not just in terms of the virtuous cycle it portends to create in combination with machine learning algorithms. What’s on the table here is a functional computational machine capable of making calculations and performing simulations that are currently impossible with today’s technology.
And the Quantinuum funding? It’s certainly significant in that it supports the idea that we’re witnessing the dawning of this new age. Though the size of the round and its pre-money valuation are impressive, one ought not get distracted by them. What should grab your attention is the “who,” as it relates to the investors. Quantinuum is designing multibillion-dollar machines, and it’s being backed by some of the world’s largest corporations.
Quantum computing isn’t a venture, roll-of-the-dice gamble.
It’s already highly strategic.
