The Commerce Department has finalized $100 million CHIPS and Science Act grants each for D-Wave Quantum, Rigetti Computing, and Quantinuum, totaling $300 million in federal support.
The three agreements, structured as research-and-development grants, are tied to project milestones and available appropriated funds, meaning payments are not guaranteed upfront.
As part of the deal structure, the Commerce Department will acquire minority, non-controlling equity stakes in both Rigetti (RGTI) and D-Wave (QBTS), giving American taxpayers potential financial upside without interfering in corporate governance.
Shares of all three companies climbed on the announcement, with Rigetti stock rising 7.4% to $16.33 and D-Wave gaining 5.4% to $17.48, while Quantinuum advanced 3.9% to $51.56 in premarket trading.
D-Wave (QBTS) has outlined plans to use its $100 million award to develop a 100,000-qubit annealing system alongside a 10,000-qubit gate-model system capable of 100 logical qubits performing more than one million operations.
The grants are not without conditions, as the awards can be terminated, adding a layer of uncertainty for companies banking on the federal funding to advance their quantum development roadmaps.
The broader CHIPS Research and Development Office has signed nine letters of intent to provide $2.013 billion in federal incentives for domestic quantum computing across multiple companies and programs.
Distribution of that funding has been far from equal, with two foundry awards alone absorbing roughly two-thirds of the entire program budget before smaller firms receive any allocation.
GlobalFoundries received $375 million, while IBM secured a $1 billion commitment for its own quantum foundry initiative, dwarfing the $100 million packages awarded to D-Wave (QBTS), Rigetti (RGTI), and Quantinuum.
IonQ (IONQ) was notably absent from this round of awards, raising questions about its position in the federal quantum funding ecosystem as competition among quantum hardware firms intensifies.
Google declined to participate in the equity-for-funding model entirely, with a Google Quantum AI executive confirming the company walked away due to restrictive conditions attached to the deal structure.
The mixed participation from major technology players highlights a growing tension between federal funding incentives and the operational independence that larger, well-capitalized firms are unwilling to surrender.
For smaller quantum companies like Rigetti (RGTI) and D-Wave (QBTS), the $100 million grants represent meaningful capital that could accelerate hardware development timelines and strengthen their competitive standing against better-funded rivals.
