D-Wave Quantum (NASDAQ:QBTS) shares climbed 4.5% on Tuesday after the company confirmed it had signed a definitive agreement with the U.S. Department of Commerce to receive up to $100 million under the CHIPS and Science Act.
The company said the award is intended to fund research and development work on both of its hardware approaches: superconducting annealing and gate-model quantum computing technologies. D-Wave plans to allocate the funds to accelerate development of next-generation systems across both platforms.
On the annealing side, D-Wave described a roadmap that includes a 100,000-qubit machine aimed at applications such as optimization tasks, materials simulation, blockchain, and artificial intelligence. For gate-model systems, the award will support development of a 10,000-qubit design that is described as enabling 100 logical qubits capable of executing more than one million operations, with target applications including quantum chemistry and quantum AI.
The definitive agreement follows an earlier Letter of Intent between D-Wave and the Department of Commerce. As a condition of receiving the funding, the Department of Commerce will take a minority, non-controlling equity stake in D-Wave.
"We’re grateful to the U.S. government for this award to D-Wave and for the leadership it is demonstrating in advancing quantum innovation," said Dr. Alan Baratz, CEO of D-Wave.
According to the company, the funding is intended to bolster domestic quantum computing capacity and to support the supply chain required to commercialize quantum systems. The award is described as supporting both hardware platforms, alongside related software and services that D-Wave offers.
The announcement links government support directly to D-Wave’s stated technical roadmaps for large-scale annealing and gate-model machines. The company framed the funding as an enabling step to move its next-generation systems closer to development milestones and market readiness, while the Department of Commerce’s minority equity position is specified as non-controlling.
Note: The terms of the award are presented by the company as up to $100 million and are tied to the equity condition with the Department of Commerce. The definitive agreement formalizes the prior intent announced between the parties.