U.S. Grants $2B to Nine Quantum Firms; WQTM ETF Rises

The U.S. government announced it will award $2 billion to nine quantum computing companies as part of federal efforts to maintain U.S. leadership in advanced computing technologies.

WisdomTree’s Artificial Intelligence and Innovation Fund (ticker: WQTM), launched last October, has risen about 13% over the past month and focuses on companies whose core businesses are tied to quantum hardware and software.

WQTM’s holdings include Rigetti Computing as its second-largest position and IonQ as its third-largest. D-Wave, Infleqtion and Xanadu together account for more than 11% of the fund. Larger technology firms with quantum programs, including IBM, are among those scheduled to receive portions of the federal allocation.

IonQ reported on World Quantum Day that it linked two commercial trapped-ion systems via quantum entanglement, demonstrating a connection intended to support distributed, modular quantum computing. The company added the quantum memory used in the link was produced from synthetic diamond technology acquired through its 2024 purchase of Lightsynq.

Rigetti is developing superconducting chiplet designs intended to combine multiple small processors into larger systems. The company remains in early revenue stages.

D-Wave, Infleqtion and Xanadu are pursuing complementary hardware and software approaches within the quantum computing sector.

Quantum hardware approaches differ: trapped-ion systems control individual charged atoms and can link operations via entanglement, while superconducting processors use circuits cooled near absolute zero and pursue scale through chiplet architectures. Both approaches face engineering challenges including error correction, maintaining coherence time and manufacturing at scale.

The federal announcement described the allocation as support for research and development at the selected companies and as part of broader efforts to bolster U.S. capabilities in advanced computing.

Market activity included gains for WQTM and renewed attention to funds that concentrate direct exposure to dedicated quantum developers rather than broader technology ETFs with limited quantum holdings.

Christopher Gannatti, a strategist at WisdomTree, wrote that IonQ’s link demonstrates the company’s ability to participate in distributed, modular quantum designs and noted the Lightsynq acquisition supplied the synthetic diamond quantum memory.