The new brand IQM determines its attention outside Europe for quantum computers

The start of the Finnish quantum computing IQM It is now unicorn: The company raised more than $ 300 million in a funding tour of the series B that led Ten projectsAnd an American investment company that focused on cybersecurity.

IQM builds quantum computers for quantum computers for local facilities as well as a cloud platform inhale this device. The company has already sold quantum computers for institutions in APAC and the United States, but its most powerful market is Europe.

This is what this tour aims to change: it plans to start starting to use the new funds for each of the commercial batch as well as research and development to comply with the advanced market understanding of what is required to convert progress in quantum science into a practical effect.

To win American customers in the face of competition from major technology companies such as IBM, Google and Microsoft, IQM knows that it should speed up their own road map of both devices and programs. According to Co-CEO and co-founder JAN Goetz, this means investing more in the company’s chips, as well as in software development and error correction research.

Correcting errors, and the ability to discover and repair quantum errors, is a hot topic at the present time, given that the idea of ​​what makes the competition for quantum computer is redefined – to be able to calculate a large number of Qubits less than the sacred cup today more than it was. “It is always a comparison between the number of cases, quality and reliability,” said Getz.

Mobility in this comparison will be very important to develop the realistic uses of the quantum computing that has been perceived for a long time, but its priorities have not been determined. But now Quantum progress on traditional giant computers Science fiction companies no longer seem, and companies like IQM are trying to make sure that their computers will get practical applications sooner, not later.

Aside from the reliability, the IQM road map is in line with the increasing focus of the sector on the software layer that will be required to put quantitative computing in the hands of the final users: experts who have a PhD in non -computing fields.

The immediate target of IQM software is to create a developer platform, says Goetz, similar to “SDK for quantum computing”, with the aim of “bringing the largest possible number of developers to start working on our devices.” As an alternative to IBM approachThis platform will be adopted QRISPAn open source project by the Berlin Research Institute, based in Berlin.

Getz said that most IQM 300 staff ranked second in its headquarters in Finland, where most IQM 300 employees are, with Munich’s large research and development unit. “But with this tour, we want to grow the team and create more commercial traction, especially in the United States.”

In the future, the company is considering becoming “more operational in the United States”, adding that the customs tariff can play a role in this decision. “One thing we study is that if we sell more systems in the United States, we can do local assembly.”

But IQM will still focus on sales in the United States at the present time. The company recently sold the local quantum computer to the OAK RIDGE National Laboratory, a scientific laboratory run by the US Department of Energy.

According to Ten Eleven Ventures, co -founder and general manager, Alex Doll, there is a strong overlap between the thesis of the investment company and the IQM concentration. “The quantum computing will be a pivotal column in the next era of cybersecurity and arithmetic innovation,” said Doll, who also joins the IQM board as part of the collection of donations.

Getz said that ten ten projects have a strong network in the United States that made it a strong occasion to start operating.

Series B also witnessed investments from the Finnish investment company Tesi, as well as Schwarz Group, Winbond Electronics Corporation, EIC, Bayern Kapital and World Fund. For each intelligence rate, this new round reaches its total financing so far to $ 600 million.

Goetz feels that the size of the tour has been justified by the commercial and technical monuments that have struck the startup in the past few months. “We are now the company that sold the most quantitative computers in the world, on all major continents,” he said.

In absolute numbers, this is still small – in late 2024, the company has achieved a production mark 30 computers quantum. This only works to remind that the sector still has a long way before it reaches a wider audience.

However, IQM chips, which have an area of ​​54, is already in use in computing centers, research laboratories, universities and institutions, and Goetz said that the company is now on the right track to publish the first 150 systems-a fact that seems to be more important than IQM unilateral.