A British quantum computing entrepreneur has doubled the value of his stake in the business he founded to $2bn (£1.5bn), after the company achieved a $10bn valuation in its latest fundraising.
Ilyas Khan, 63, is the founding chief executive of Quantinuum, a UK-US firm which announced on Thursday it had raised $600m as investor interest builds in the cutting-edge technology.
Khan founded Quantinuum’s predecessor company, Cambridge Quantum, in 2014 before it merged with US-based Honeywell Quantum Solutions in 2021.
Khan, a former owner of his home town’s football club Accrington Stanley, is now chief product officer at the business and to date has not sold any shares since founding it more than a decade ago. He owns a stake of about 20% in the business, with US conglomerate Honeywell controlling 54%. New investors in the funding round include the chip maker Nvidia and US venture capital firm QED.
Excitement over the potential for quantum computing, and the companies at the forefront of its development, has been building amid a series of technological breakthroughs, with the UK government setting a target of 2035 to develop quantum systems capable of outperforming conventional supercomputers.
Quantum computing has the potential to power breakthroughs in a wide range of areas from drug discovery to artificial intelligence, owing to its ability to carry out far bigger calculations than conventional computer systems. Experts have also warned that it has the ability to crack high-level encryption, which has prompted calls for governments and companies to adopt quantum-proof cryptography.
However, the technology still needs to develop, and become more stable, before it can achieve transformative breakthroughs.
Classical computers encode their information in bits – represented as a 0 or a 1 – that are transmitted as an electrical pulse. A text message, email or even a Netflix film streamed on a smartphone is a string of these bits.
In quantum computers, however, the information is contained in a quantum bit, or qubit. These qubits – encased in a modestly sized chip – are particles such as electrons or photons that can be in several states at the same time, a property of quantum physics known as superposition.
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This means qubits can encode various combinations of 1s and 0s at the same time – and compute their way through vast numbers of different outcomes. However, they have to be kept in a highly controlled environment – such as being kept free from electromagnetic interference – or else they can be easily disrupted.
Rajeeb Hazra, Quantinuum’s chief executive, said its new funding would “strengthen the entire quantum ecosystem”.
Quantinuum produces a full range of quantum technologies, from hardware to the algorithms and software that power its systems. Its customers include government institutions and, in the private sector, companies like banking groups JP Morgan and HSBC.
With the latter, it helps banks solve particularly challenging problems in areas like fraud detection and cybersecurity. It also helps simulate new materials and molecular structures for pharmaceutical companies
The UK’s science minister, Lord Vallance, said the $10bn valuation was “a vote of confidence in quantum’s transformative potential, and the speed of progress in putting quantum to work, here in the UK”.