The U.S. Department of Commerce has finalized agreements providing up to $100 million each to Rigetti Computing, D-Wave Quantum and Quantinuum as the government expands its support for the domestic quantum-computing industry.
The three agreements represent up to $300 million in combined funding under the CHIPS and Science Act. In exchange for the support, the Commerce Department will receive minority, non-controlling equity stakes in the three companies.
The awards are being administered through the CHIPS Research and Development Office. The program is designed to support quantum research while strengthening the semiconductor, manufacturing and advanced-hardware supply chains needed to produce quantum systems in the United States.
The arrangements were finalized on September 8, 2026, following letters of intent announced by Commerce in May as part of a broader quantum initiative worth about $2.013 billion involving nine companies.
Rigetti’s agreement focuses on superconducting quantum computing and covers three major research projects. The company plans to work on miniaturized readout electronics, a new cryostat architecture with increased cooling capacity and fabrication techniques for quantum processors with greater connectivity.
Rigetti can receive up to $100 million under the agreement over a period of up to five years. Its filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission states that the funding is divided into three potential tranches of $43.9 million, $29.9 million and $26.2 million.
The later payments are tied to the completion of specified project milestones. The agreement also includes provisions allowing the government to seek recovery of funds in certain circumstances if required project activities are not completed.
As part of the arrangement, Rigetti agreed to issue 7,739,938 shares of common stock to the Commerce Department at an implied price of $12.92 per share, representing approximately $100 million in equity.
The government stake is minority and generally non-voting, although the shares carry voting rights on certain fundamental corporate matters. Rigetti’s agreement also contains provisions covering foreign entities, national-security considerations, technology transfers, domestic manufacturing, intellectual property, cybersecurity and reporting requirements.
The agreement includes certain government rights involving intellectual property developed with federal support, including licensing and march-in provisions under specified conditions.
D-Wave is receiving up to $100 million to support research aimed at improving both superconducting annealing and gate-model quantum systems.
According to the company’s disclosure filed with the SEC, the work includes research into qubit counts, error rates, coherence, advanced dielectric materials, interface control and high-density advanced packaging.
D-Wave is also pursuing longer-term development targets that include a 100,000-qubit annealing system and a 10,000-qubit gate-model system. The company says the gate-model system is intended to support 100 logical qubits and more than one million operations.
Those figures are development targets rather than capabilities the company is reporting as already operational.
Quantinuum’s award is focused on trapped-ion quantum computing and the manufacturing technologies needed to scale its systems.
The company’s announcement says the funding will support work on low-loss integrated photonics, semiconductor technology designed for cryogenic environments and optical components operating at wavelengths required by trapped-ion systems.
Quantinuum plans to work with GlobalFoundries on manufacturing next-generation ion traps and related electronics using 300mm wafer technology.
Monarch Quantum is also expected to support the program by working on lasers and optical components required for Quantinuum’s trapped-ion systems.
The three agreements are part of a wider federal program announced in May. The Commerce Department said at the time that it had issued letters of intent involving nine companies and approximately $2.013 billion in planned incentives.
The original group included D-Wave, Rigetti, Quantinuum, PsiQuantum, Infleqtion, Atom Computing, IBM, GlobalFoundries and Diraq, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Commerce also finalized a separate agreement with PsiQuantum for up to $100 million on September 8. The photonic quantum-computing company is working on high-performance electro-optic materials, high-temperature single-photon detectors and ultra-low-loss photonic packaging.
The separate PsiQuantum award means the quantum-related awards finalized by Commerce on September 8 were not limited to the $300 million allocated across Rigetti, D-Wave and Quantinuum.
GlobalFoundries received another separate award worth up to $375 million. The company says the five-year program is intended to establish a domestic quantum foundry and support manufacturing technologies for multiple quantum architectures.
The Commerce Department’s announcement says the GlobalFoundries work includes cryogenic CMOS process design kits, advanced packaging and heterogeneous integration.
GlobalFoundries will also issue shares to the U.S. government as part of the agreement. The company disclosed that it will issue 9,907,399 shares at $37.85 per share, representing approximately $375 million.
The use of equity stakes distinguishes the agreements from conventional government grants. Rather than providing funding without an ownership interest, the government is taking minority positions in participating companies while attaching conditions to the federal support.
Reuters reported in May that the administration was pursuing equity positions in strategic industries as part of a broader approach to government investment.
Not every quantum company agreed to the proposed structure. Google Quantum AI said in June that it had rejected the Commerce Department arrangement because of conditions attached to the proposed funding.
Investors responded positively to the finalized quantum agreements. The Wall Street Journal reported that on September 8, Quantinuum rose 5.5% to $52.44, D-Wave gained 9.1% to $18.08 and Rigetti increased 6.4% to $16.17.
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