Since our last publication on quantum computing (“Quantum Computing: Visionary Technology, Distant Commercial Reality”, published 20 Jan 2026), interest in the quantum computing industry has strengthened as private capital continues to flood in, governments write large cheques, and the first commercial revenues begin to materialise. Strategic implications—ranging from challenging existing encryption standards and exposing banking system vulnerabilities, to unlocking substantial economic value in pharmaceuticals and financial modelling—are also increasingly intriguing. Yet the technology’s path to genuine economic impact remains long, uncertain, and strewn with formidable technical obstacles. Investors tempted by the hype would do well to temper enthusiasm with realism.

Private capital leads the charge. Global investment in quantum-tech start-ups reached USD12.6bn in 2025, a y/y increase of more than 6x. Private sources such as venture capital, private equity, corporations, and public markets account for 97% of total funding in the sector, up sharply from previous years. Public money, once dominant, has shrunk to a mere 3% of the pie. This shift suggests that quantum technology is gradually moving from laboratory curiosity towards something closer to a commercial proposition.

Government and corporate deals add ballast. In May, the US government signalled its strategic seriousness by offering USD2bn under the CHIPS and Science Act to nine quantum firms, taking minority stakes in return. IBM alone is set to receive USD1bn to build a domestic chipmaking venture; others, including GlobalFoundaries, D-Wave, Rigetti, and Infleqtion, will share the rest. Meanwhile, dealmaking is consolidating the supply chain. D-Wave’s USD550mn acquisition of Quantum Circuits in January gave it a second platform; IonQ’s USD1.8bn planned purchase of SkyWater Technology will secure US foundry capacity. Such moves are less about immediate profits and more about securing the hardware and expertise for scale.

Latest results reveal a dual reality. Earnings from pure-play leaders in 1Q26 illustrate both progress and pain. IonQ posted record revenue, up more than sixfold y/y, with lifted guidance. Rigetti tripled its revenue, driven by system shipments. D-Wave’s revenue, however, dipped y/y due to a large asset sale in 1Q25, though bookings exploded to over USD30mn. Remaining performance obligations across the sector are surging, a sign that customers are committing real money. Yet large operating losses and heavy cash burn persist, with the four leaders expected to remain loss-making for the next half a decade—a reminder that the industry is still investing far more than it earns.

Technical and operational obstacles loom large. For all the financial tailwinds, the core challenges have not vanished. Qubits remain exquisitely sensitive to noise; error correction, which demands encoding each logical qubit across thousands or even millions of physical ones, is still in its infancy. Scalability involves not just more qubits but also reliable interconnects, cryogenic infrastructure (bringing the operating environment to zero kelvin), and control electronics; it is a system-level problem that pushes both engineering and physical limitations.

Compounding these difficulties is the absence of a dominant, proven qubit technology. Five main approaches—superconducting circuits, trapped ions, photonic systems, neutral atoms, and silicon spin qubits—are being deployed. Each offers different trade-offs in speed, fidelity, scalability, and manufacturability, but none has yet pulled decisively ahead, splintering investment, talent, standards development, and commercialisation.

A chronic shortage of talent, a fragile, specialised supply chain, and the high cost of maintaining the necessary environments add to the burden. Most experts reckon that broad commercial advantages, particularly in finance, pharmaceuticals, or materials science lie 5 to 10 years or more away. Hybrid quantum-classical approaches may deliver early value, but the full economic prize—potentially trillions of dollars by the mid-2030s—will arrive only once fault tolerance is achieved.

In essence, the investment thesis of quantum science will need to overcome the following hurdles while investors await sustained investability:

1. Volatility of qubits and their control at scale
2. Lack of use cases and commercial value
3. Cooling power and environmental control
4. Energy sufficiency
5. Lack of skilled personnels hindering proliferation
6. Absence of commercially viable equipment and a reliable ecosystem

A measured approach to exposure. There are several channels through which investors can participate in the quantum science investment theme:

1. Exposure to diversified technology leaders driving research, capex, and commercial frameworks, such as IBM, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon.
2. Semiconductor and computing infrastructure beneficiaries including NVIDIA, Advanced Micro Devices, Intel, and HPE (Quantum Scaling Alliance, DARPA Quantum Benchmarking Initiative), which may benefit from the longer-term convergence of AI, HPC, and quantum workloads.
3. Cybersecurity providers positioned for the emergence of post-quantum encryption standards, including Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike, and Broadcom (via VMware’s post-quantum cryptography).
4. Pure-play QC developers focusing on superconducting circuits, trapped ions, photonics, and quantum software stacks—an area with considerable technological intrigue, though commercial visibility remains limited at current juncture. This is not for the fainthearted, but rather for patient capital willing to withstand significant volatility.

Given the sector’s long runway and high uncertainty, the path towards commercially viable, fault-tolerant quantum technology is still widely viewed as a post-2029/2030 phenomenon, with meaningful scalability and reliability hurdles yet to be overcome. In many ways, the industry resembles a marathon shrouded in mist rather than a sprint toward imminent monetisation—rich in transformative potential, but unlikely to reward the faint-hearted or impatient investor. Selective participation through diversified technology ecosystems may offer a steadier way to keep a foot in tomorrow’s frontier without venturing too far into uncharted waters.

Figure 1: Private sources now represent over 95% of sector funding

Source: McKinsey, DBS


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