Quantum News Nexus

A whole lot of quantum news has happened this week. I’ve already covered Google Quantum AI’s big announcement, and the Wall Street Journal report about the possibility of the federal government taking equity stakes in quantum companies, but here’s more:

• SEALSQ announced its uplisting to the Nasdaq Global Select Market (NASDAQ: LAES) and its achievement of a $1 billion market capitalization. I’ll have more on this later, but moving up from a Nasdaq Capital Markets listing provides more visibility for a Swiss company working to expand in the US. The release in the link also talks about how SEALSQ calculated its market cap.

• Honeywell’s earnings call on Oct. 23 included some commentary on Quantinuum, the full-stack quantum computing company in which it still has majority ownership stake. There have been expectations that Honeywell could steer Quantinuum toward an IPO next year or in 2027. Honeywell CEO Vimal Kapur had this to say during the earnings call (from the Investing.com transcript): “While we are tremendously excited about the future of the business, we recognize we are not the best long-term owner, and it will eventually need its own capital structure to fully exploit its growth potential. As a result, Honeywell will seek to begin monetizing its stake in the company at the appropriate time in a manner that will create meaningful value for Honeywell shareholders.” That seems to confirm the possibility of an IPO or perhaps a direct sale to another company, and that Honeywell is getting the ball rolling.

• Quantum stock values were jumping again on Friday after a week of declines, thanks at least in part to that WSJ story–even though other reports said the US Department of Commerce denied that any such negotiations were happening.

• Reuters reported Friday that an IBM quantum error correction algorithm can run on AMD chips. That news follows the recent partnership between the two companies, and sent AMD’s share value soaring, as it now apparently is viewed as a member of the quantum sector. A research paper is said to be forthcoming.

• Let’s not forget IonQ: the company said earlier this week it had demonstrated 99.99% two-qubit gate fidelity, which is higher than some companies have claimed and would seem to be the gold standard of reliability that quantum computer developers have had the goal of achieving to open up broader commercial viability. IonQ claimed its demonstrated fidelity broke the old record of 99.97% by Oxford Ionics, a company that IonQ now owns.

• Quantum Art partnered with Israel’s Ayalon Highways traffic organization to pursue quantum-based optimization for urban traffic management. I ‘ll have more on this one in the coming days.