🧠Quantum questions
On the eve of Sunrise, the country's biggest startup festival, the government announced the biggest single investment into a startup in memory. But not everyone is enamoured with that.
Australia’s quantum computing founders have long dreamed of the day when the federal government would support the nascent industry like America, China and Europe do. But by handing a whopping $940 million cheque to a single startup operating in the space, PsiQuantum, there are fears the Albanese government has plonked a gigantic elephant in the room that could trample everyone else.
“Current and future investors are going to ask the very reasonable question of why didn’t your government support you, and why do you persist in trying to be a global company from Australia? Just pick it up and go for Christ's sake,” said Marcus Doherty, co-founder of Main Sequence-backed Quantum Brilliance, a rival to PsiQuantum.
Quantum computing is best described as an exponentially more powerful form of computing, where equations and calculations that currently would take decades could be solved in minutes. It's still somewhat theoretical, with no one having yet created a quantum computer capable of reliably high performance, but hopes are high it could transform industries. Boston Consulting Group has predicted that quantum computing could add over $60 billion to Australia’s GDP by 2040, and Michelle Simmons, the founder of quantum startup SQC, has even received Australian of the Year and Prime Minister Award nods for her work in the sector.
But 'quantum computing' is an umbrella term, and there are many very different ways of achieving it. Doherty's Quantum Brilliance uses the chemistry of diamonds as a basis for its quantum computing, which is different to PsiQuantum’s strategy of embedding light particles in silicon. Other approaches, like those being pursued by Diraq and Simmons' SQC, use electrons as their foundation.
