By most measures, 2025 was a record-breaking year, a year when the quantum industry matured and the public began to take notes.
As is our tradition, The Quantum Insider will take a look back to review just some of the business stories that captured our community’s attention.
The following top ten business stories of 2025 are drawn from The Quantum Insider to give you a snapshot of which developments resonated most strongly with our audience over the past year. It’s certainly not comprehensive — 2025 was an extremely busy year for quantum business. The list was pulled together using web analytics, but we added some personal favorites to make sure the list represented the spectrum of quantum news that hit the internet during 2025.
The stories trace how the quantum sector is moving from laboratory milestones to corporate and commercial execution — spanning new technological approaches, product launches, strategic acquisitions and platform announcements. Together, they show large technology companies and startups alike tightening the link between materials science, hardware engineering, and commercial road maps.
Let’s get started…
Xanadu Announces SPAC Deal to Go Public, Sets Pre-Money Value at $3 Billion US
Xanadu Quantum Technologies, Inc. (“Xanadu”), a leading photonic quantum computing company, and Crane Harbor Acquisition Corp. (Nasdaq: CHAC), a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company (“Crane Harbor”), today announced that they have entered into a definitive business combination agreement with a newly formed entity, that is expected to result in Xanadu being the first and only publicly traded pure play photonic quantum computing company. Upon closing of the transaction, shares of the combined company are expected to trade on the Nasdaq Stock Market and on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
$10 Billion Quantum Firm Quantinuum in Oversubscribed Round
Quantinuum’s funding received the media spotlight several times in 2026.
In late summer 2025, SEC Form D filings showed Quantinuum raised at least $593 million in a private funding round, more than the earlier reported $400 million and pushing its valuation to $10 billion. Later, Fidelity Internationa joined the latest funding round for Quantinuum, the Honeywell-controlled quantum computing company valued at $10 billion. It was Fidelity’s first in the company and was one more big name on a growing list of institutional backers betting on the potential of quantum computing.
Infleqtion to Go Public Through Merger with Churchill Capital Corp X
Infleqtion, a global leader in neutral atom–based quantum technology, and Churchill Capital Corp X (NASDAQ: CCCX), a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company, today announced they have entered into a definitive business combination agreement, with the aim to accelerate Infleqtion’s mission to commercialize quantum products that provide orders of magnitude improvement in computing and precision sensing applications. Upon closing, the combined company will operate as Infleqtion and is expected to be listed on a leading North American exchange under the ticker “INFQ.”
IonQ Was in Hire-And-Acquire Mode in 2025
Riding the tide of a robust wave of investments in quantum’s public companies, IonQ put those funds to work, acquiring several companies, while adding talent. Here are a few of those headlines from 2025.
IonQ Completes Acquisition of Oxford Ionics, Rapidly Accelerating Its Quantum Computing Roadmap
IonQ Completes Acquisition of Vector Atomic
IonQ Announces Plans to Acquire Skyloom
IonQ Appoints Marco Pistoia as Senior Vice President of Industry Relations
Atlantic Quantum Joins Google Quantum AI
Atlantic Quantum, an MIT-founded startup developing superconducting quantum hardware, has joined Google Quantum AI in what looks like — but not, as of press time, spelled out officially in Google’s announcement — as an acquisition. The post does outline that the move is a way to fuel the race toward error-corrected quantum computers. The deal also brings Atlantic Quantum’s modular chip stack technology into Google’s quantum program, with the goal of addressing one of the sector’s central challenges: scaling systems to practical, fault-tolerant machines.
Qolab Secures Investment From Applied Ventures And Announces Collaboration to Advance Quantum Computing Manufacturing
Qolab, Inc., a leading innovator in quantum computing hardware, today announced an investment from Applied Ventures, LLC, the venture capital arm of Applied Materials, Inc. This Series A investment marks a significant milestone in the collaboration between Qolab and Applied Materials to accelerate the development and scalable manufacturing of superconducting qubits.
Quantinuum Announces Commercial Launch of Helios — A Quantum Computer With Accuracy to Enable Generative Quantum AI
Quantinuum, the world leader in quantum computing, today announced the launch of Helios, the world’s most accurate general-purpose commercial quantum computer, designed to accelerate quantum computing adoption by enterprises. With the highest fidelity† of any commercial system and a first-of-its-kind real-time control engine, Helios enables developers to program a quantum computer in much the same way they program heterogeneous classical computers. A new, modern Python-based programming language called Guppy allows developers to seamlessly combine hybrid compute capabilities — quantum and classical — in a single program. Helios is now available to customers through Quantinuum’s cloud service and on-premise offering.
IBM Reveals New Quantum Processors, Software and Algorithm Advances
BM officials have told CNBC that the company has booked a cumulative $1 billion over the years — and they expect quantum to bring in a lot more as the company turns toward transformative technologies to deliver real-world revenue in the future.
Although the report did not specify when IBM’s quantum revenues began, it highlighted the company’s growing reliance on emerging technologies, particularly quantum and artificial intelligence (AI), to drive new and expanding revenue streams. This strategic focus on quantum and AI was especially evident in IBM’s latest quarterly and annual updates.
Andhra Pradesh Plans ‘Quantum Valley’ to Advance India’s National Quantum Mission
The Andhra Pradesh government has announced plans to establish a Quantum Valley, a quantum computing hub in Amaravati, as part of India’s National Quantum Mission. The initiative, led by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, is intended to provide the infrastructure necessary in hopes of establishing the state as a leading center for quantum technology research and development in India.
According to a recent post from The Hindu, Naidu stated, “Just as we led the Information Technology revolution in the 1990s, we want Andhra Pradesh to lead advancements in Quantum Technology, securing a first-mover advantage in this transformative field.” To support this effort, the state government is forming a task force to oversee the development of the hub and drive investments into the sector.
Microsoft’s Majorana 1 Chip Carves New Path for Quantum Computing
Microsoft today introduced Majorana 1, the world’s first quantum chip powered by a new Topological Core architecture that it expects will realize quantum computers capable of solving meaningful, industrial-scale problems in years, not decades.
It leverages the world’s first topoconductor, a breakthrough type of material that can observe and control Majorana particles to produce more reliable and scalable qubits, which are the building blocks for quantum computers.
In the same way that the invention of semiconductors made today’s smartphones, computers, and electronics possible, topoconductors and the new type of chip they enable offer a path to developing quantum systems that can scale to a million qubits and are capable of tackling the most complex industrial and societal problems, Microsoft said.
