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PsiQuantum Corp.
PsiQuantum is building a large-scale quantum computer using photons of light, aiming to solve problems that ordinary computers cannot.
PsiQuantum is a quantum computing company trying to build one of the most powerful computers ever made. Its bet is unusual: instead of trapping tiny particles in complicated vacuum chambers, it uses particles of light, called photons, and standard semiconductor chip factories to build its machine. The goal is a full-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer — one that can run long calculations reliably, not just lab demonstrations.
The company does not sell a product yet. It makes money from investors and partners who fund its research, plus government and corporate contracts tied to building quantum machines. Its most important partner is GlobalFoundries, which manufactures the silicon photonic chips PsiQuantum designs. That matters because PsiQuantum's whole strategy depends on borrowing the mature chip industry's factories rather than building exotic new hardware from scratch.
The early plan was to build its first machine in Australia, and the company has since expanded to Chicago and other sites. Its customers, ultimately, would be governments, research labs, and big companies in fields like drug discovery, materials science, and finance — anyone who needs to simulate nature or crunch problems too hard for today's computers. The strategy is high-risk and high-reward: the machines are far from finished, timelines keep slipping industry-wide, and no one has shown a useful large-scale quantum computer yet. PsiQuantum is essentially a long-shot bet that light plus existing chip fabs is the cheapest path to a working quantum machine.
Saved answer · last researched 10 Nov 2026
BIG PICTURE
Among companies chasing quantum computers with light, PsiQuantum is the frontrunner at 52%
- 52% PsiQuantum (frontrunner)
- 48% Other photonic quantum computing companies
FutureSearch puts PsiQuantum's probability of winning the race to build a photonic quantum computer at 52 percent, roughly a coin flip, despite leading the field. The company has more private money than rivals, over $2 billion, and the largest single round in the sector, $1 billion in 2025. Building the machine is the hard part. Its target of a million qubits by mid-decade has slipped to 2028-2030. Source: FutureSearch, data from 2026
Timeline
Four Professors Bet on Photons
In 2015, a group of Australian professors started PsiQuantum in Palo Alto with a contrarian idea. Everyone else was building quantum chips in tiny custom labs, but they wanted to use the same giant factories that already make ordinary computer chips. Their quantum bits would be made of light, and if the bet paid off, they could build millions of them instead of just a handful.
PsiQuantum Partners with GlobalFoundries
For that plan to work, PsiQuantum needed a real factory. A few years later it struck a partnership with GlobalFoundries, a big chip manufacturer, to build its light-based quantum devices on standard production lines. The idea was no longer just a theory on paper; it had a place to be made at scale.
Fusion-Based Quantum Computing Arrives
In 2021 the company introduced a new way to design its machines, called fusion-based quantum computing. The trick was to make the error correction more forgiving, so the whole thing could be built in modular pieces instead of one fragile monster. It was the blueprint that made the factory plan seem actually possible.
Australia Backs a Brisbane Machine
Then came the big proof of confidence. In 2024, the Australian government put in a landmark investment to build PsiQuantum's first utility-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer in Brisbane. It was the company's first major government-backed site, with a target of being up and running by the end of 2027.
Chicago Lands the Illinois Quantum Park
A second site followed the same year, this time in the United States. PsiQuantum agreed to anchor a new quantum and microelectronics park in Chicago, backed by state incentives and a large company investment of its own. Now the company had two big home bases and a lot of promises to keep.
Omega Chipset Unveiled
In 2025 PsiQuantum showed off Omega, a chipset containing all the light-based parts needed for a full-scale quantum machine. The real news was that it could be made on standard semiconductor lines. The factory bet from the early days had moved from hope to hardware.
A Billion-Dollar Round
Investors bought in hard. PsiQuantum raised a billion dollars to build the world's first commercially useful, fault-tolerant quantum computers, and its valuation more than doubled from its earlier peak. The money was meant to break ground in Brisbane and Chicago and to put large prototype systems into action.
Victor Peng Takes the CEO Chair
In early 2026, the company changed who was in charge. Victor Peng, a former Xilinx CEO and AMD president, became interim CEO, while co-founder Jeremy O'Brien moved up to executive chairman. The company framed it as a shift from inventing the core technology to actually building and running the machines, not a change of direction. Peng soon dropped the interim label.
Brisbane Site Moves to Moreton Bay
The buildout then hit a dose of reality. The Australian project shifted to a new location at Moreton Bay Central instead of the Brisbane Airport spot named back in 2024, and early site work began. The original 2027 target was not restated, a quiet reminder of the gap between big announcements and a working fault-tolerant machine.