The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded Stage A contracts to 18 companies under its Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI), aimed at accelerating the development of fault-tolerant, utility-scale quantum computing systems within the next decade.
QBI, launched in July 2024, builds on the Underexplored Systems for Utility-Scale Quantum Computing (US2QC) program and is designed to rigorously verify and validate whether any quantum computing approach can achieve utility-scale operation—meaning its computational value exceeds its cost—by 2033.
“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. “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.”
The following companies are developing various approaches to quantum bits (qubits)—including superconducting qubits, trapped ion qubits, neutral atom qubits, photonic qubits, semiconductor spin qubits, and other innovative technologies:
- Alice & Bob – superconducting cat qubits
- Atlantic Quantum – fluxonium qubits with cryogenic controls
- Atom Computing – neutral atom arrays
- Diraq – silicon CMOS spin qubits
- Hewlett Packard Enterprise – superconducting qubits
- IBM – modular superconducting processors
- IonQ – trapped-ion quantum computing
- Nord Quantique – superconducting qubits with bosonic error correction
- Oxford Ionics – trapped ions
- Photonic Inc. – optically linked silicon spin qubits
- Quantinuum – trapped-ion QCCD architecture
- Quantum Motion – silicon spin qubits
- Rigetti Computing – superconducting transmon qubits
- Silicon Quantum Computing Pty. Ltd. – atom-based silicon qubits
- Xanadu – photonic quantum computing
(Three additional companies are participating but are not yet publicly named due to ongoing contractual negotiations. DARPA will update this announcement once their agreements are signed.)
If successful, participants will advance to Stage B, in which DARPA will conduct a detailed review of each company’s R&D plan, including associated risks and prototype development. In Stage C, an independent verification and validation (IV&V) team will assess full systems performance in real time.
“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 explained. “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 emphasized that QBI is not a competition between firms, but a comprehensive scan of promising approaches toward a scalable, useful quantum computing platform. Each concept will be evaluated not just for theoretical merit, but for manufacturability, scalability, and performance under real-world conditions.
DARPA also announced that Microsoft and PsiQuantum are now entering the third and final phase of the US2QC pilot, which shares the same technical objectives as QBI’s Stage C—verifying and validating utility-scale quantum computing systems.
“We’ve built and are expanding our world-class IV&V team of U.S. quantum experts, leveraging federal and state test facilities to separate hype from reality in quantum computing,” Altepeter said. “Our team is eager to scrutinize the commercial concepts, designs, R&D plans, and prototype hardware—all with the goal of helping the U.S. government identify and support efforts that are genuinely advancing toward transformative, fault-tolerant quantum computing.”
About DARPA
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Defense dedicated to creating breakthrough technologies for national security. Founded in 1958, DARPA is credited with pioneering advances including the internet, GPS, stealth technology, and mRNA vaccines. It collaborates with academia, industry, and other government organizations to turn innovative ideas into transformative capabilities.
For more information on QBI, please click here.
Source:/Photo Credit: U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
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