DARPA’s ‘Landscape Scan’ Identifies Companies Targeting Industrially Useful Quantum Computers by End of Decade

Insider Brief

• DARPA has selected 18 quantum computing companies for the first stage of its Quantum Benchmarking Initiative to assess whether any can build a fault-tolerant, utility-scale quantum computer by 2033.
• The program involves a three-stage process including technical validation, research plan review, and independent hardware testing by a government team.
• Selected firms span a range of architectures—including superconducting circuits, trapped ions, photonics, and silicon spin qubits—reflecting a broad scan of technologies under serious consideration.

The U.S. Department of Defense is putting nearly 20 quantum computing companies under the microscope to determine whether any can build a fault-tolerant quantum computer within the next decade.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced that 18 firms have been selected for the first stage of its Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI), a program designed to verify whether any current approaches can reach utility-scale quantum computing — meaning a system that delivers more value than it costs — by 2033.

The move signals a shift in federal quantum strategy toward real-world performance and accountability. Unlike open-ended research grants, QBI is structured as a three-stage review process culminating in hands-on testing of full systems. DARPA says the initiative aims to separate “hype from reality” and identify concepts that could lead to fault-tolerant machines — systems that can continue to operate correctly even when individual components fail.

“We selected these companies for Stage A following a review of their written abstracts and daylong oral presentations before a team of U.S. quantum experts to determine whether their proposed concepts might be able to reach industrial utility,” said Joe Altepeter, DARPA QBI program manager, in the statement. “For the chosen companies, now the real work begins. Stage A is a six-month sprint in which they’ll provide comprehensive technical details of their concepts to show that they hold water and could plausibly lead to a transformative, fault-tolerant quantum computer in under 10 years.”

QBI launched in July 2024 as a follow-on and expansion of DARPA’s earlier pilot program, known as Underexplored Systems for Utility-Scale Quantum Computing (US2QC). Microsoft and PsiQuantum, two of the US2QC participants, have advanced to its third and final phase, which mirrors the technical goals of QBI’s concluding stage.

Scanning the Landscape

The program is not a winner-takes-all competition. Instead, DARPA describes it as a landscape scan to find all companies with a plausible path to a working system. The selected firms represent a broad mix of technologies, including superconducting circuits, trapped ions, photonics, silicon spin qubits, and neutral atoms.

Among those selected:

• Alice & Bob — Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Paris, France (superconducting cat qubits)
• Atlantic Quantum — Cambridge, Massachusetts (fluxonium qubits with co-located cryogenic controls)
• Atom Computing — Boulder, Colorado (scalable arrays of neutral atoms)
• Diraq — Sydney, Australia, with operations in Palo Alto, California, and Boston, Massachusetts (silicon CMOS spin qubits)
• Hewlett Packard Enterprise — Houston, Texas (superconducting qubits with advanced fabrication)
• IBM — Yorktown Heights, NY (quantum computing with modular superconducting processors)
• IonQ — College Park, Maryland (trapped-ion quantum computing)
• Nord Quantique — Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada (superconducting qubits with bosonic error correction)
• Oxford Ionics — Oxford, UK and Boulder, Colorado (trapped-ions)
• Photonic Inc. — Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (optically-linked silicon spin qubits)
• Quantinuum — Broomfield, Colorado (trapped-ion quantum charged coupled device (QCCD) architecture)
• Quantum Motion — London, UK (MOS-based silicon spin qubits)
• Rigetti Computing — Berkeley, California (superconducting tunable transmon qubits)
• Silicon Quantum Computing Pty. Ltd. — Sydney, Australia (precision atom qubits in silicon)
• Xanadu — Toronto, Canada (photonic quantum computing)

DARPA has not disclosed the funding amounts tied to QBI. The agency said three additional companies are still finalizing agreements and will be announced later.

From Theory to Hardware

Stage A, now underway, requires each company to submit detailed technical reports justifying their claims. If accepted, they will proceed to Stage B, a yearlong review of their research and development plans. The final Stage C will subject prototype systems to independent verification and validation (IV&V) by a team of government experts.

This third stage will involve live hardware testing, where DARPA engineers evaluate the components, subsystems, and algorithms of the candidate systems under rigorous conditions.

“During Stage B we’ll thoroughly review all aspects of their R&D plans to see if they can go the distance — not just meet next year’s milestones — and stand the test of trying to build a transformative technology on this kind of a timeline,” Altepeter said. “Those who make it through Stages A and B will enter the final portion of the program, Stage C, where a full-size IV&V team will conduct real-time, rigorous evaluation of the components, subsystems, and algorithms – everything that goes into building a fault-tolerant quantum computer for real. And we’ll do all these evaluations without slowing the companies down.”

DARPA says QBI’s IV&V team is being expanded to include federal and state test facilities, with the aim of creating a high-integrity, independent testing pipeline for emerging quantum systems.

High Stakes in National Security

Fault-tolerant quantum computing remains one of the most ambitious goals in science and engineering. Today’s early systems — typically under 100 qubits — are noisy, prone to error, and useful only for limited experiments. Scaling them to millions of qubits, with sufficient error correction, remains a monumental challenge.

But if successful, such systems could simulate complex molecules, optimize supply chains, and break certain cryptographic systems, posing both economic opportunities and national security risks.

That potential explains why DARPA, traditionally the U.S. military’s technology incubator, is investing in hard-nosed evaluations of commercial claims.

A Measured Sprint

While commercial companies have touted progress toward so-called “quantum advantage” — where quantum systems outperform classical ones — most demonstrations have been narrow in scope, often contrived and rarely tied to practical outcomes, according to the defense agency.

QBI reflects a shift from marketing to milestones. DARPA’s approach insists on detailed roadmaps, real deliverables, and independent measurement, the kind of structure rarely found in early-stage deep tech sectors.

With the 2033 target less than a decade away, QBI’s back-to-basics emphasis on credibility may provide a reality check for an industry long dominated by bold claims and uncertain timelines. Whether any company survives all three stages — and whether any system lives up to the promise — may shape the next generation of high-performance computing.

Quotes

Julien Camirand-Lemyre, CEO and Co-founder of Nord Quantique.

“Knowing that DARPA sees the potential in our technology and has invited us to be a part of this program is very gratifying. We view this acceptance as evidence that the technology we’ve been developing holds tremendous potential and will ultimately deliver useful quantum computing in the medium term. Our approach is based on qubits encoded with bosonic codes and is one-of-a-kind in quantum computing. This distinct combination of scalable hardware and fault-tolerant design allows us to achieve compelling error correction results today. However, the key is that this technology will also scale to useful levels without relying on redundancies of thousands of qubits in large a physical overhead. We therefore anticipate delivering useful quantum systems which are just a fraction of the size of some competing designs, and consume substantially less power. We believe in our technology, and we know how we’re going to reach utility scale.”

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra, President and CEO of Quantinuum

“We are honored to collaborate with DARPA and look forward to working closely with their test and evaluation team as they assess our roadmap and technological approach. With our roadmap firmly on track, we are confident in our ability to deliver on DARPA’s objectives for QBI.”

Dr. Stephanie Simmons, Founder and Chief Quantum Officer at Photonic Inc.

“We are proud to be selected for Stage A of DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative. When DARPA announced QBI last year, we were pleased to see that their definition of “utility scale” includes not only the computational value, but also the costs. We know that maintainability, serviceability, reliability, manufacturability – in addition to the obvious scale required to unlock the promise of quantum – are critical. Photonic’s Entanglement First architecture provides a scalable solution for distributed quantum computing. We look forward to delving deeper into our architecture with the QBI test and evaluation team in the months to come.”

Krysta Svore, Technical Fellow, Advanced Quantum Development, Microsoft

“Realizing the full potential of quantum at scale will require our collective genius. We were pleased to learn that Photonic was selected for DARPA’s QBI Stage A, a rigorous recognition cementing Photonic’s unique, entanglement-first approach to distributed quantum computing.”

Masoud Mohseni, Distinguished Technologist, HPE Quantum team

“Our conclusion was that the current pace of innovation was too slow to reach utility-scale quantum computing in the next decade, so we decided to try something different. We changed to a more open approach, bringing in partners that will foster innovation to potentially solve the really hard scaling problem that exist in quantum computing.” 

Andrew Dzurak, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Diraq

“Diraq’s focus is to design, build, and deploy the world’s first truly utility-scale quantum computer. We are pleased to be selected by DARPA and the US Government for this focus on full-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computing and welcome the opportunity to demonstrate our CMOS quantum dot qubit approach. We are leveraging exceptional technical capabilities and extensive experience within our consortium, having partnered with the best teams worldwide. We are confident that our combined expertise, designs, and technologies can rapidly deliver a commercially viable quantum system concept in terms of capex per system, plus realistic considerations around equipment footprint, scalability, sustainability and operating costs.”

Dr. Subodh Kulkarni, Rigetti CEO

“Rigetti has spent the last decade developing the IP and expertise needed to build and deliver high-performing quantum computers. The DARPA QBI sets out to prove a realistic path to quantum utility, which we believe we are well positioned to deliver. The DARPA QBI program is closely aligned with Rigetti’s technology roadmap, which includes building out our QEC capabilities and developing fault-tolerant architectures.” 

Théau Peronnin, CEO and Co-founder of Alice & Bob

“Alice & Bob has always been solely focused on building a universal, fault-tolerant quantum computer. The DARPA QBI contract is a major validation of our approach, allowing us to work on the real-world impact of quantum computers in high-technology domains, including chemistry and materials science.” 

James Palles-Dimmock, CEO Quantum Motion

“This announcement not only highlights the impressive achievements of the team we’ve assembled, but also demonstrates a commitment to tackling the engineering challenges of utility-scale quantum hardware. We’ve invested heavily in solving the exact problems that turn a few qubits in a lab into the fault-tolerant systems needed to tackle real-world, intractable problems. This alignment of vision, progress, and proven expertise in silicon-based technology positions us to deliver meaningfully into DARPA’s quest for a utility-scale quantum computer.”

Ben Bloom, Founder and CEO of Atom Computing

“Pushing the state-of-the-art of quantum computing to utility scale is an exciting challenge, and it is an incredible honor to be selected to participate in DARPA’s QBI program. We are confident that Atom Computing’s technology and roadmap are on track with DARPA’s timeline for achieving utility-scale quantum computing.”