The US government announced last week 2 billion dollars have been invested in quantum computing companies, allocates $100 million to a number of startups in exchange for equity in the companies. These can be investments for many companies that are years away from a product that could see widespread use. But a member of the US Congress now claims the deals are illegal because Congress didn’t earmark the money for that purpose — instead, it was meant to support public research in semiconductors.
But most of the money went to a company that probably wouldn’t exist without government support. Anderon will be founded with $1 billion each from IBM and the government, and will inherit personnel and IP from IBM. It will serve as a foundry for the production of quantum processing devices and will contract its services to IBM and any other company that wants access to the cutting-edge equipment.
Are any of these legit?
Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, clarified he is not happy with how the government is using its money to support this technology.
“This announcement is illegal and troubling on many levels,” Lofgren said a day after the announcement, pointing out that the money used for the deal came from the CHIPS and Science Act, passed during the Biden administration and earmarked “specifically for microelectronics R&D.”
This technology only partially overlaps, at best, with that used in quantum processors. In addition, Lofgren says the money has been earmarked to foster public/private research partnerships, but these deals are definitely not the case. Ultimately, he noted that the largest sum of money would go to IBM, and he suggested that a former IBM executive (Dario Gil, now Under Secretary for Science at the Department of Energy) participate in the negotiations that led to the deal.
None of this, he noted, means quantum computing is a bad investment or that any of these companies are unworthy of support. He simply argues that doing so would require Congress to appropriate money for it.
