Quantum leap
It's possibly the biggest ever injection of Australian taxpayer funds into a startup. But will the Albanese government's $940 million quantum computing bet pay off?
Has Australia backed the right horse? That’s the question we’re left asking after the Commonwealth and Queensland governments announced they would give quantum computing startup PsiQuantum $940 million — the biggest injection of taxpayer funds into a startup in recent memory, perhaps ever.
The funding, which is a new line item in the budget and not part of an existing policy, follows a competitive expression of interest process that was shrouded in secrecy.
The handout has attracted a sharp response from economists (and some other startups), who almost always warn governments against trying to “pick winners”. History shows governments tend to be pretty rubbish at doing that. Doing so risks wasting taxpayer money on political pet projects and initiatives that don’t stack up commercially and end up failing. This concern is particularly acute with PsiQuantum because when a government tries to pick winners for this type of mega funding it usually does so at the industry or technology level — not by showering money on individual companies.
But economic theory aside, it’s worth giving the policy a practical hearing. As Capital Brief has written previously, Australia does punch above its weight in quantum computing, producing groundbreaking research in a field that has the potential to revolutionise agriculture, pharmaceuticals and engineering through exponentially more powerful computers.
