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FROM THE EDITOR.
First, happy 4th of July for our U.S. readers!
Meanwhile… This week was yet another example of how there’s still plenty of investor interest flowing into quantum and nearby deep-tech spaces. So here are a few funding shout-outs this week.
Qolab is the quantum version of a supergroup, like Cream or the Traveling Wilburys, with the power trio John Martinis, Alan Ho and Robert McDermott, at the helm. This week, the company announced it pulled in $54.2 million in Series B funding and commitments to keep pushing its superconducting quantum computing platform and fault-tolerant roadmap forward.
Czech-based Wultra raised €6.8 million in Series A funding to grow its post-quantum digital identity platform. And CCRAFT secured $7.8 million to expand its thin-film lithium niobate photonic chip foundry in Switzerland, supporting everything from AI and networking to aerospace and quantum tech. Hopefully I didn’t miss anyone!
In China SpinQ announced it completed a RMB 1 billion (about $147 million US) Series D funding, demonstrating a growing commercial quantum ecosystem is developing in that nation.
Still lots of fireworks in the public markets and broader finance space, too.
IQM Quantum Computers is now trading publicly. This is also being labeled Europe’s first public quantum.
It’s tough to say whether the market will stay this hot for the rest of the year, but there are some early signs worth watching—like SPACs (special purpose acquisition companies) raising funds with deep-tech targets in mind.
We’ll be keeping an eye on how it all plays out.
Have a great weekend and thanks for reading!
— Matt, Chief Content Officer at The Quantum Insider
— Krista Elliott, Narrative Content Strategist at The Quantum Insider
Check out this week’s handpicked quantum research studies and news focusing on real-world impact: improving accuracy, reducing latency, using fewer resources, or solving problems that classical methods struggle with.
Researchers at Texas A&M University developed a laser-based technique called Thermostable Raman Interaction Profiling (TRIP) that directly measures quantum forces involved in protein interactions and drug binding. The team demonstrated the technique on the SARS-CoV-2 main protease, showing that it could predict how effectively antiviral drugs bind by measuring changes in molecular vibrations. The researchers believe TRIP could accelerate drug discovery by providing a direct method to study protein interactions relevant to diseases including cancer, Alzheimer’s and infectious diseases.
Researchers from the University of Coimbra introduced QGARS (Quantum-Guided Autoencoder with Reservoir Surrogate), a hybrid quantum-classical pipeline for medical image classification focused on polyp detection in colonoscopy images. The system compresses medical images using a classical autoencoder, then routes the compressed representation through a neutral-atom quantum reservoir to produce high-dimensional feature embeddings, which are passed to a linear classifier. On the CVC-ClinicDB clinical dataset, QGARS achieved 88.90% accuracy, outperforming standard autoencoder-based quantum pipelines and classical baselines.
Researchers from NUST Islamabad and NYU Abu Dhabi's Center for Quantum and Topological Systems introduced HQTN-SER, a hybrid quantum-classical framework for speech emotion recognition that uses a Matrix Product State-structured quantum circuit to model correlations in acoustic features with a compact parameter footprint. The MPS architecture constrains qubit interactions to nearest neighbors, reducing gradient instability and keeping the quantum module to as few as 3 qubits and 3,528 total trainable parameters. Evaluated across three public benchmarks spanning English and Moroccan Arabic dialect, the model achieved consistent accuracy of 73.51% to 80.12%, with hardware-aware testing under IBM's FakeMarrakesh noise model showing negligible performance degradation of just 0.06 percentage points from noiseless simulation.
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Quantum Headlines
Microsoft is accelerating its Quantum Safe Program with a goal of moving critical products and services to post-quantum cryptography by 2029. The company said the transition will require organizations to identify and update cryptography across networks, stored data, identity systems, certificates, software signing and hardware.
Easier said than done, right?
Post-quantum cryptography is going to be a serious challenge for organizations in the next few years, particularly for larger organizations or enterprises whose systems contain widespread (and in some cases, forgotten) tentacles of risk surface. I’m thinking of ERP systems, or IoT devices or machinery, or any of older-than-dirt legacy systems banks and governments still tend to use. How will they be made quantum-ready in time?
Microsoft is sending a clear warning to big organizations: Start now.
— Krista Elliott, Narrative Content Strategist at The Quantum Insider
South Korea held quantum cooperation talks with Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union during Quantum Korea 2026 in Seoul. The Canada talks focused on joint research and personnel exchanges in quantum science, while the U.K. and EU meetings focused on commercialization, verification, standardization and expanded research cooperation.
In other South Korean news, the country will make quantum technologies one of 10 national strategic technology areas under a five-year science and technology plan that commits more than 200 trillion won to government R&D through 2030. The Ministry of Science and ICT said 60 trillion won will be directed toward 55 technologies across fields including quantum, artificial intelligence, semiconductors and advanced biotechnology.
Quantum Leap Acquisition Corp. completed a $230 million IPO and began trading as a public SPAC seeking a potential acquisition in AI, quantum computing or blockchain. The company sold 23 million units at $10 each after underwriters fully exercised their 3 million-unit over-allotment option.
SpinQ has completed a RMB 1 billion Series D funding round to accelerate the development of fault-tolerant quantum computers, bringing its total fundraising over the past six months to RMB 2 billion. The funding will support full-stack quantum computing development, including quantum error correction, hardware-software integration, manufacturing capabilities, and global ecosystem expansion.
Other News:
GLOBAL QUANTUM + AI CHALLENGE!
The Global Quantum + AI Challenge is an international initiative designed to move quantum research closer to industrial use. In partnership with enterprises, technology providers, startups, and research teams, the program focuses on real-world problems where quantum computing may eventually create practical value, with AI and high-performance computing serving as key tools for testing, benchmarking, and deployment.
This week’s featured challenge comes from Airbus, which is seeking new approaches to predictive aerodynamic modeling. Accurately forecasting aerodynamic flows requires solving partial differential equations using state-of-the-art HPC, but current methods still face scaling limits and continued reliance on expensive wind tunnel testing under demanding acceleration and Mach conditions. Airbus is looking for more efficient PDE solvers that could help future product solutions meet strict quality, performance, and environmental requirements.
Teams working in quantum algorithms, hybrid quantum-classical workflows, scientific machine learning, computational fluid dynamics, or quantum-inspired optimization are encouraged to take part. Phase I concept proposals are open until 15 September 2026.
Sign up now to participate in the Global Quantum + AI Challenge and help turn quantum research into industrial outcomes.
EDITOR’S SPOTLIGHT.
➡️ IQM Quantum Computers is set to begin trading on Nasdaq on July 2 under the ticker symbol IQMX, giving one of Europe’s best-known quantum hardware companies a public-market listing.
➡️ The listing follows IQM’s completed business combination with Real Asset Acquisition Corp., a Nasdaq-listed special purpose acquisition company.
➡️ The transaction, combined with a private placement to institutional and accredited investors, brought IQM about €198.7 million, or $233.5 million, in net proceeds.
➡️ Founded in 2018 in Espoo, Finland, IQM builds full-stack superconducting quantum computers for research institutions, universities, enterprises, national labs and high-performance computing centers.
➡️ The company says its systems are operating at 13 research facilities, including four national supercomputing centers, and it deployed its first U.S.-based quantum computer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2026.
➡️ IQM’s public listing gives investors a new way to bet on quantum computing infrastructure, especially the market for on-premises systems, national quantum programs and hybrid quantum-supercomputing deployments.
Commentary:
Quantum computing is adding another public company to its expanding family.
IQM’s Nasdaq debut offers a glimpse into a quantum industry that is moving deeper into the world of public investors, where long timelines, technical uncertainty and strategic ambition all have to live under the same ticker symbol.
Quantum companies often ask investors to look well beyond near-term revenue and judge them instead on technology, talent, government demand, customer traction and the possibility that quantum computers may eventually become strategic infrastructure. IQM now has to make that case as a public company.
The company has some pieces that public-market investors may understand. It is not a pure research story. Since its founding in 2018, IQM has focused on superconducting quantum computers, the same broad hardware approach used by several major players in the field. It also sells full-stack systems, meaning it is not only working on chips, but on the hardware, controls, software and integration needed to deliver working machines.
That message should land with many customers because governments, research centers and supercomputing facilities often do not want only access to quantum computers through the cloud. Some want machines installed on site, tied to national research programs, sovereign technology strategies or high-performance computing centers. IQM has built its identity around that market.
Its history gives the listing more substance than a simple public-market story. IQM grew out of Finland’s research ecosystem, with roots in Aalto University and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. It has expanded across Europe, including a major presence in Munich, and has moved into the United States and Asia. The company says it has more than 400 employees from more than 40 nationalities.
The company has also reached manufacturing and deployment milestones that are still relatively rare in quantum computing. By 2024, IQM had produced its 30th quantum computer, and its systems are now in use at research facilities and national computing centers. That does not mean the machines are commercially transformative yet. But, what it does suggest is that IQM has moved beyond slide decks and lab prototypes into the more difficult business of building, delivering and supporting systems.
The new capital gives IQM more room to expand that model as the company received proceeds from the SPAC combination, remaining trust funds and a PIPE investment priced at $10 per share. The warrants, now tied to IQM American depositary shares, will trade separately under IQMX WS.
For investors, the question is not whether quantum computing is strategically important, but, the harder question is which companies can turn that strategic importance into revenue, repeatable deployments and a moat of durable technical advantage.
IQM’s case rests on the pillard of European quantum sovereignty, superconducting hardware, on-premises systems, supercomputing integration and a global customer base. Those are real strengths in a market where many companies are still trying to prove they can deliver beyond experiments.
But the public markets will bring a different kind of pressure. Investors will want evidence that deployments can scale, that customers will keep buying systems and that quantum hardware can move toward practical use without burning through capital faster than the market’s patience.
IQM has earned its place in the quantum conversation.
Now it has to earn its place as a public company.
DATA SPOTLIGHT.
PacketLight Networks and NEC demonstrated quantum key distribution over a 400G dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) network using a dual-fiber setup. They integrated NEC’s QKD system with PacketLight’s PL-4000M 600G Muxponder, achieving 100% data throughput and low latency, verified via a 100GbE tester. The QKD ran over a dedicated parallel fiber, maintaining quantum signal integrity. The result: a cost-effective, scalable quantum-safe model with zero performance tradeoffs on existing high-capacity infrastructure.
EVENTS.
July 2-4 – Quantum Korea 2026 will take place at Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) in Seoul, South Korea.
July 7 -- Are Agents the Secret to Quantum R&D Success? Presented by Resonance and hosted by Haiqu, leaders from across the quantum ecosystem will discuss what's working, what's hype, and what still needs to be figured out.
July 12-17 -- Optica Imagesense Congress will take place at the Maastricht Exhibition & Conference Centre in Maastricht, Netherlands.
July 13-18 – IEEE World Congress on SERVICES 2026 will take place in Sydney, Australia.
July 22-23 – Global Quantum Forum 2026 will take place in Chicago, Illinois
July 26-31 – Many-Body Quantum Systems will take place at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts.
August 13-14 -- Texas Quantum Summit 2026 will take place at the University of Texas at Dallas in Richardson, Texas.
September 15 – Quantum Leap Career Nexus 2026 will take place at the University of Maryland.
September 9-10 -- Rice Quantum Frontiers Summit will take place at Rice University in Houston, Texas.
October 1 -- Quantum in Business (QiB) Conference will take place at The Westin Chattanooga in Tennessee and will be hosted by EPB Quantum.
October 7 -- City Quantum & AI Summit will take place at Mansion House in London.
FEATURED RESOURCE.
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The Quantum Insider
Editor: Matt Swayne
Contributors: Krista Elliott
