The venture capital arm of semiconductor giant Nvidia was among the investors in a $1 billion funding round for quantum computing firm PsiQuantum.

The Palo Alto, California-based firm secured Series E funding that valued the company at $7 billion. The capital will be used to advance the development of large-scale prototype systems and facilitate the construction of quantum computing sites in Brisbane and Chicago.

Joining Nvidia’s NVentures in backing PsiQuantum were BlackRock funds, including its Adage Capital Management affiliate; Temasek, the Singaporean state-owned multinational investment firm; and Qatar's sovereign wealth fund.

Nvidia’s involvement goes beyond simply investing, with the pair set to collaborate on quantum algorithms and software, GPU-QPU integration, and PsiQuantum’s silicon photonics platform.

“Only building the real thing – million-qubit-scale, fault-tolerant machines – will unlock the promise of quantum computing,” PsiQuantum CEO Jeremy O’Brien explained. “With this funding, we’re ready to take the next decisive steps to deliver the full potential of quantum computing.”

Founded in 2016, PsiQuantum is attempting to develop photonic chips specifically designed for quantum computing. The company has partnered with GlobalFoundries to bring its chipset to life, which features integrated components designed to utilize single photons as qubits.

Its hardware efforts are part of the startup's ultimate objective of building a quantum computer with a million qubits.

The addition of Nvidia supporting its development efforts aims to further fuel that goal – with the chip giant now looking to make strides in quantum computing research itself. This is a departure from earlier comments from founder Jensen Huang that the technology was between 15 and 30 years away.

PsiQuantum represents Nvidia's third investment in a quantum computing firm, and notably, its second within a single week, following its recent backing of Massachusetts-based QuEra.

The GPU giant has also previously invested in Honeywell spin-out Quantinuum.

Networking and cooling for quantum computing

In addition to support from one of the biggest names in tech, PsiQuantum said the funding will help scale barium titanate (BTO) – among the highest-performing electro-optic materials in the world – into its manufacturing flow.

The startup manufactures 300-millimeter wafers of BTO at its facilities in California, which are then integrated with wafers manufactured at GlobalFoundries.

The material is in its optical switches, providing low-power, high-speed optical networking, which also has potential for AI-focused supercomputers.

Beyond photonic chips, PsiQuantum develops cooling, networking, and control systems for quantum machines. Their photonic approach avoids traditional cryostats, instead using a high-density cooling solution resembling data center racks. These are capable of cooling hundreds of chips. Its high-fidelity quantum networking between cabinets, however, uses standard telecom fiber.

The startup’s efforts haven’t gone unnoticed, being among a cohort of developers with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to build a fault-tolerant quantum computer within a decade. It is also the beneficiary of a $10.8 million contract with the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), developing quantum photonic solutions to support use cases within the Air Force.

“Nearly nine years after we started, we have pushed the technology to an unprecedented level of maturity and performance,” PsiQuantum Chief Scientific Officer Pete Shadbolt, added. “We have the chips, we have the switches, we have a scalable cooling technology, we can do networking, we have found the sites, we have the commercial motive and the government support – we’re ready to get on and build utility-scale systems.