By Maria Korolov
Publication Date: 2026-10-14 14:12:00
The U.S. government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, is awarding up to $300 million each to four companies to help them get their quantum computing hardware ready for independent testing. These four companies—IBM, IonQ, Diraq, and Atom Computing—have officially entered “Stage C” of DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative, joining Microsoft and PsiQuantum, which were already in Stage C because they were part of a precursor program.
Each of the four new companies takes a different approach. Atom uses scalable arrays of neutral atoms, Diraq has silicon spin qubits, IBM has superconducting circuits, and IonQ uses trapped ions.
“The DARPA QBI determines whether vendors have a credible strategy and execution plan to build a sufficiently powerful quantum computer by 2033,” says Bob Sutor, founder and CEO at Sutor Group Intelligence and Advisory. This selection of companies shows that they are “on track, and, in some sense, are in the…
