Insider Brief
- PsiQuantum has signed an expanded $125 million agreement with DARPA under the Quantum Benchmarking Initiative, remaining one of two companies in the program’s final Stage C to validate its pathway toward utility-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computing.
- The performance-based award will fund expanded testing of PsiQuantum‘s hardware, software, system architecture and infrastructure, including investments at its Milpitas, California, and Chicago, Illinois, facilities.
- The agreement builds on years of DARPA evaluations that have included extensive technical reviews, on-site demonstrations and component testing, and follows PsiQuantum‘s recently announced proposed $100 million CHIPS and Science Act incentive agreement with the U.S. Department of Commerce.
PRESS RELEASE — PsiQuantum today announced that the company has signed a new $125 million expanded agreement with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) under DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI), the U.S. government’s most rigorous effort to evaluate commercial pathways to utility-scale quantum computing.
PsiQuantum remains one of two companies in Stage C, QBI’s final and most advanced stage focused on verifying and validating the company’s approach to building, deploying, and operating its utility-scale quantum computers as designed.
“DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative is one of the most comprehensive and rigorous government programs for evaluating emerging technology that I have ever seen,” said Victor Peng, Chief Executive Officer of PsiQuantum. “Their widely respected team of experts has stress-tested PsiQuantum’s approach, provided an independent and clear-eyed assessment and validation of our designs and our teams, and ultimately made our company and technology all the better for it.”
The performance-based award, PsiQuantum’s most valuable government award to date, will support testing and evaluation of the company’s utility-scale hardware designs, critical components, system-level performance, and software development. The agreement will also enable PsiQuantum to invest in essential infrastructure at the company’s facilities in Milpitas, California, and Chicago, Illinois, as it advances toward building and deploying the world’s first utility-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computers.
“Since our first engagement with DARPA several years ago, we have been delighted to give their team unparalleled access to our most sensitive designs, performance data, and plans,” said Dr. Pete Shadbolt, Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of PsiQuantum. “The QBI program has been admirably skeptical by design. Expert scrutiny from DARPA has put us to the test and significantly strengthened our plans. We are very grateful for the ongoing partnership.
Unparalleled Access, Independent Evaluation
The QBI program applies independent, rigorous, and pathway-agnostic evaluations to quantum computing approaches. In January 2023, DARPA selected PsiQuantum for the initial stage of the Underexplored Systems for Utility-Scale Quantum Computing (US2QC) program, a QBI predecessor. In January 2024, PsiQuantum announced it had entered the second stage, then announced in February 2025 that it had advanced to Stage C of QBI. In September 2025, the company announced a $31.8 million agreement to continue on-site testing and evaluation under Stage C. With the new $125 million tasking, PsiQuantum and DARPA are expanding the scope and pace of QBI’s validation and verification work across hardware and architecture, software and applications, and supporting infrastructure.
“Both QBI and the broader quantum computing field have advanced rapidly since our first call,” said Micah Stoutimore, Managing Director of DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative, in a statement earlier this year. “In fact, it now seems likely that someone will build a utility-scale quantum computer by 2033. We want to ensure we are assessing every viable pathway.”
DARPA’s evaluation of PsiQuantum’s approach has included extensive access to technical information, on-site reviews, real-time demonstrations, and hands-on component-level testing. Throughout 2025, PsiQuantum hosted dozens of experts led by DARPA for full program reviews and technical demonstrations. The company has also provided prototype design reports, real-time demonstrations of key components, onsite testing of key fabrication and measurement processes, verification of resource estimates for quantum algorithms, and access to Construct, PsiQuantum’s fault-tolerant algorithm development platform.
The expanded DARPA agreement follows PsiQuantum’s May 2026 announcement that the company has signed a Letter of Intent with the U.S. Department of Commerce for $100 million in proposed federal incentives under the CHIPS and Science Act to advance American quantum computing and semiconductor leadership. Since initially partnering with DARPA, PsiQuantum has deepened its partnerships across the U.S. government, including with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, and several National Laboratories.
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