By Sasha Rogelberg
Publication Date: 2026-04-22 07:10:00
Christian Weedbrook, a film school dropout turned CEO of Xanadu Quantum Technologies, was minted a billionaire in a matter of days thanks to Nvidia endorsing quantum computing as the future of AI.
Last week, Nvidia announced Ising, a family of open-source quantum AI models promising to address major bottlenecks in quantum computing, particularly in calibration and error correction. By addressing barriers to growing quantum processing as part of AI infrastructure expansion, Nvidia gave credibility to quantum computing as the future of AI expansion.
Following the announcement, Xanadu’s stock rallied about 250% to a peak of $32.67 per share. With a 15.6% stake in the company, Weedbrook’s net worth skyrocketed to $1.5 billion within five days of the announcement, according to Bloomberg, which cited market data and regulatory filings. Xanadu’s share price has since come back to earth, but remains more than double its original valuation prior to the announcement.
Founded in 2016 by Weedbrook, Xanadu is working to build the first quantum data center by 2030, using light in photonic quantum computers to be able to perform computations at room temperature. The company went public in March after merging with publicly traded blank-check firm Crane Harbor Acquisition Corp.
While traditional computing uses binary bits like 0 or 1 to represent data, quantum computing uses qubits, which can exist as both 0 and 1 simultaneously, exponentially increasing…