Insider Brief
- QBoson raised CNY1 billion ($145 million) in a Series B round to scale quantum chip production and expand its computing systems.
- The company will use the funds to build a pilot chip production line, expand its Shenzhen quantum factory, and address technical barriers to practical quantum computing.
- QBoson has deployed systems to early customers and aligns with China’s national strategy to advance scalable and fault-tolerant quantum technologies.
Chinese quantum startup QBoson has raised CNY 1 billion — or about $145 million USD — to expand chip production and scale its quantum computing systems, according to YiCai Global.
The move reflects Beijing’s overall push to move the technology from lab experiments into industrial use.
The Beijing-based company said it completed a Series B round totaling CNY1 billion, led by a group of state-backed and institutional investors including Beijing Financial Holdings Group and ICBC Capital. Existing shareholders also participated, signaling continued domestic support for quantum computing as a strategic sector.
The funding will be used to address technical bottlenecks that have slowed the development of practical quantum computers, build a pilot production line for quantum chips, and expand operations at what the company describes as China’s first large-scale quantum computer factory, reported YiCai Global, an English-language business and financial news service focused on China. reported. QBoson also said it plans to develop a broader ecosystem that combines quantum computing with artificial intelligence.
Scaling Beyond the Lab
QBoson, founded in 2020, focuses on photonic quantum computing, a method that uses particles of light to process information. Unlike traditional computers, which rely on bits that represent either 0 or 1, quantum systems use “qubits,” a “superposition” that can theoretically represent multiple states at once. Relying on that and other properties of quantum mechanics, quantum machines can, in principle, handle certain calculations far more efficiently than conventional systems.
The company has already introduced several specialized quantum computers with 100, 550 and 1,000 qubits, the news serrvice reported . The number of qubits is often used as a rough measure of a quantum system’s computational capacity, though performance also depends on stability and error rates.
As reported by YiCai Global, at the recent ZGC Forum in Beijing, QBoson unveiled a next-generation system equipped with an AI-driven control platform designed to keep the machine running reliably for extended periods. The company said the system can operate for 7×16 hours and is intended for use in areas such as drug development, materials science, energy systems and finance.
From Prototypes to Production
The company’s expansion centers on its Shenzhen facility, which began production last November. The factory is positioned as a step toward mass manufacturing of quantum hardware. The industry has struggled to reach mass manufacturing the equipment due to engineering complexity and sensitivity to environmental noise.
QBoson indicated it has already delivered systems to a range of early users, including the National Supercomputing Center in Chengdu, China Mobile Communications Group and North China University of Technology. These deployments suggest a shift toward testing quantum systems in real-world settings, even as the technology remains in an early stage.
Industry analysts broadly view manufacturing scale as one of the main hurdles for quantum computing, alongside improving system reliability and reducing errors. Building dedicated production lines for quantum chips could help standardize components and lower costs over time.
The financing comes as China increases its focus on quantum technology — and the commercialization of that technology — at the national level. The country’s latest five-year plan for 2026 to 2030 calls for building an integrated quantum communication network and advancing both general-purpose and specialized quantum computers.
The plan also highlights goals such as achieving fault-tolerant systems — machines that can correct their own errors — and developing scalable architectures that can handle larger, more complex problems.
Last week, another Chinese quantum company — SpinQ Technology — announced it raised 600 million yuan — about $83 million USD — in a Series C+ round, bringing its total Series C funding to nearly 1 billion yuan in three months to accelerate development of scalable quantum computing systems.
